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Cheap Health Insurance News

Base Your Private Health Cover On What You Need

Thursday November 27, 2008
MATCH your health insurance costs to your lifestyle risks.

Dissect Your Private Cover

Wednesday November 26, 2008
Match your health insurance costs to your lifestyle risks.

Is It Good For Your Wealth?

Wednesday July 9, 2008
Reviewing your health insurance and what it covers is just what the patient ordered.

To Pay Or Not To Pay, That Is The Question

Saturday May 17, 2008
Changes to Medicare will probably mean that many give up private health insurance, writes Nick Miller.

600,000 May Quit Health Insurance

Tuesday May 13, 2008
MORE than 600,000 Victorians may quit private health cover, putting more pressure on public hospitals, if the state returns to the participation rate that existed before the Medicare surcharge was introduced.

Health Premiums Set To Double Inflation

Saturday April 23, 2005
Consumers should expect private health insurance premiums to keep rising by twice the inflation rate every year, according to the head of Ramsay Health Care, Australia's new largest private hospital operator.

No Relief For Health Premiums

Saturday April 23, 2005
Tax aid would lift the take-up of health insurance, set to keep rising at twice CPI, says new hospital giant Ramsay

Deadline Draws Near For Lifetime Health Cover

Saturday June 24, 2000
WITH just six days until the June 30 deadline for Lifetime Health Cover, people without health insurance should be seriously - and swiftly - considering the wisdom of opting out. The older you are, the more financially important this decision is. That's because from July 1, anyone over 30 who joi

Health Funds `forced On' The Well-off

Friday May 26, 2000
The Federal Government was forcing people to buy products they did not want in its quest to limit the type of private health insurance high-income earners buy, consumer groups said yesterday. As the impact of the Government's change sank in, private health funds were besieged with people checkin

Democrats Make Deal On Health Plan

Friday September 24, 1999
The Federal Government's latest attempt to boost private health insurance coverage is set to go ahead after a compromise deal was struck with the Australian Democrats. The Government has agreed to a number of concessions on its Lifetime Health Cover to win the support of the Democrats in the Sena

Health Cover: Wealthy To Pay Up

Friday September 24, 1999
Thousands of upper-income earners with cheap health insurance will be forced to pay the 1 per cent Medicare surcharge under regulations planned by the Federal Government. The Government also plans a campaign urging doctors to reveal to patients before their treatment how much they face in gap pa

Health Funds To Raise Rates

Tuesday June 1, 1999
CANBERRA Some Australians with private health insurance face premium increases of more than 10 per cent when the next round of health-fund price rises are announced today. While the biggest health fund, Medibank Private, is expected to limit premium increases to less than 4 per cent, some sm

Wealthy `rort' Health Rebate

Saturday February 13, 1999
Private health insurance rebate rules would have to be tightened if high earners were abusing the system to avoid the Medicare levy surcharge, a parliamentary committee has been told. The 30 per cent rebate is not means-tested but individuals earning more than $50,000 a year or couples earning

Circumvent The Surcharge

Tuesday July 1, 1997
ALTHOUGH the Medicare surcharge for high-income earners without private health insurance kicked in yesterday, it is not too late to get health insurance coverage and avoid the bulk of the surcharge which you'll be hit with at the end of the tax year. The surcharge is an additional 1 per cent tax

Private Health Funds Seen As Way Out Of Surcharge

Tuesday July 1, 1997
High income earners had rushed to avoid paying a 1 per cent income tax surcharge by taking up cheap private health insurance policies with big excesses, NSW's biggest fund, MBF, said yesterday. The statement came as the Minister for Health, Dr Wooldridge, warned that it was "a fact of life&q

Public System Pressure Stays Despite Tax Dodge

Sunday June 29, 1997
People without private health insurance will be stuck in the "slow lane" for treatment in the public hospital system. That's the message of the Federal Government's multi-million dollar advertising campaign to convince people to take out cover from tomorrow. Tuesday is the first day

Nab, Anz To Market Health Insurance

Wednesday June 4, 1997
Arch rivals ANZ Banking Group and National Australia Bank will battle it out in the insurance market, with both groups launching private health insurance products yesterday. It is the first foray by Australian banks into the $4.5 billion private health insurance industry, with both looking to bo

Natmut To Provide Anz's Health Cover

Sunday May 18, 1997
ANZ Banking Group is about to shake up the private health insurance industry with the bank expected to launch its own private health insurance product later this month. ANZ may be the first of the four major banks to offer a private health insurance product to customers. National Mutual will d

Gap In The Insurance Report Needs Treatment

Thursday April 10, 1997
People dump their health insurance for one fairly fundamental reason: the-often whopping gap between what their (rising) premiums cover and what their doctors and hospitals charge them. The trouble with the 524-page Productivity Commission report into private health insurance is that it contains

Insurers Stretching For The Health Dollar

Friday October 25, 1996
PRIVATE health funds have had it tough in the past decade. As more people have found private health insurance is a luxury they can no longer afford, the percentage of Australians with private cover has dwindled to 33 per cent of the population, compared with 50 per cent a decade ago, and it conti