I’m not clear if you currently have it and want to get rid of it or don’t have it and are thinking of getting it. If you don’t currently have it I would have thought the surcharge would be extreme.
Beyond the fact that I reckon health insurance doesn’t make financial sense for most people, I have big philosophical issues with the government subsidy of it. The health insurance system has administrative costs to run the whole operation, they spend money on advertising themselves, they’re mostly for profit so have to take some off the top, and the private hospitals are sometimes for profit as well, I reckon there’d be much better health outcomes if that money was spent on public health. Not that that is on topic for your question of course.
Anyway, I never understand why some people are down on public hospitals. Emergency Room wait times for one. If you never had to wait, that would mean the system was inefficient – highly paid and trained medical staff would effectively just be sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for a customer to come in. Of course no one wants to wait too long, so there’s a balance there. But I’ve found them to be pretty good overall.
I’m sure that people (generally) that go to private hospital have a great experience, then they see the huge bill, breathe a great sigh of relief that their insurance will mostly cover it but never realise that could have had the same procedure for nearly as quick for no cost at the public hospital down the road, meaning the insurance was never really needed.
Anyway a bad experience at a public hospital doesn’t mean they’re always bad and a good experience at a private hospital doesn’t mean they’re always good, so it’s difficult to trust anecdotes. I worked at the Health Quality and Complaints Commission many years ago and they both get complaints. I wouldn’t be worrying about quality of care.
This leaves wait times and potential costs of the private system with and without insurance.
Private health insurance cover often doesn’t cover as much as people would hope. I haven’t looked at it for years, but while they were pretty good at covering the cost of staying in the hospital, they were not so good at covering the costs of the procedures. Medicare will cover 75% of the “scheduled fee” and the insurer will then cover the remaining 25% (generally only more if you highly expensive cover). The problem is the scheduled fee, like the general GP co-payment has not kept pace with the minimum fee a specialist will actually get out of bed for so you end up out of pocket even before the “excess” the insurer has.
I’m happy to just pay private if I don’t want to wait. Being proactive with your health can help in some situations, so you can get a referral before your elective issue is critical. It is very unlikely you will need care that only a private hospital can give that will cost many tens of thousands. If it was likely premiums would be even higher. There’s also a hybrid model where you can get a private procedure in a public hospital for a reduced cost.
I used to keep track of how far ahead I by not having health insurance, but stopped over a decade ago when I was well over 20k ahead. Add another ten years of fees and investment growth to that.
I’m going to finish with some anecdotes (which as anecdotes, you shouldn’t base you decision on) to illustrate some experiences that have filled me with a warm inner glow about the public system.
Last year my son broke his little toe (sticking out sideways). From leaving home to getting back again was five hours. This was assessment – x-ray – fixing toe – follow up x-ray – assessment – paperwork. He got crutches and a moon boot and didn’t cost a cent. I don’t see how you could reasonably expect better than that.
I get regular screening colonoscopies (which never cost anything). The first one, they thought it was urgent enough the public system paid for my procedure in a private hospital. The private hospital lacked the necessary equipment to remove several very large polyps and I just had to go to the public hospital eight weeks later.
My mum always goes private even though she can’t really afford it. When sick one time while visiting we took her to the public hospital here. She was so impressed (and surprised).
SUMMARY: I wouldn’t yell at you if you got private health insurance but it’s very likely not worth it
