Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nearly 50 per cent of Australians aged between 30 and 50 now have private health insurance. Given the contribution made by the member for Lalor only a few minutes ago, I think it would be remiss of me to leave some of the claims that she made unanswered, so I would like to devote a couple of moments this evening to picking up on some of the criticisms that she made about private health insurance in this country.

Most important of all was the criticism that there has been very little consultation in the area of private health insurance. That could not be further from the truth. There has been extensive consultation, both with industry and with the Australian Medical Association and other bodies, in coming up with some of the legislation that has been debated today. It is extraordinary that those on the other side of the chamber, with a record of trying to kill off private health insurance at every election and then trying to be as silent as possible on the issue of private health insurance in between elections, can stand up today and speak about the rights of the consumer—remember, of course, that the consumer would not even have the option of private health cover under their policies. I am sure the member for Isaacs would have a memory long enough to recall exactly where private health insurance stood in 1996. That was at a level of 31 per cent and falling fast.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms King interjecting

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I accept the member for Ballarat’s question. Let us not forget that in 1996 private health insurance was ailing. It was falling at two per cent per year. If it had continued without the intervention of this side of the chamber, estimates are that we could well have seen private health insurance levels of between 10 and 20 per cent. They are not. They are closer to 45 per cent nationwide—between 43 per cent and 45 per cent.

They are ordinary, hardworking Australians at every income level. Twenty per cent of those in the lowest income quintile still take out private health insurance. This is not an option for the rich; this is an option for all Australians. It is made affordable by the private health rebate and by three of the most extraordinary policy interventions in recent Australian health policy history: Lifetime Health Cover, the rebate and community rating—making sure that those that are unlucky enough to be ill pay no more for their private health insurance than anyone else. It is a very important policy trident that has pushed up private health care and private health cover.

What has that done? That means that we do not have the queues in the public hospitals that we may well have had. We have present in the chamber a former GP in the member for Bradfield, who will recall that, were we to remove private health insurance altogether and move the 30 per cent of Australian who are currently covered back into the queues of public hospitals, we would need not just $20 billion a year to run hospitals but possibly $30 billion a year. The cost of the rebate to shift people across into private health care is only $2.8 billion per year. That is small change compared to what we would have to pay to run public hospitals to support 80 or 90 per cent of Australians, who under a Labor alternative government would have no option.

I will have another chance to talk about the myths that are perpetuated by the other side of the chamber relating to health insurance. I will not go into that today, but I do want to pick up two issues: the issue of the cost of private health cover and gaps and the issue of exclusions. The complete and utter focus of the opposition on private health costs is simply a switch from two years ago of worrying about bulk-billing rates. Now of course they focus on the cost. There is never a point made that the cost of private health cover is simply a reflection of the cost of delivering health services in a developed economy. Public health expenditure rises at a similar rate, assuming nearly nine per cent of GDP now. Even the hospital agreements that are made between Commonwealth and state increase between 25 per cent and 36 per cent over and above inflation over the terms of the AHCAs—the Commonwealth-state health agreements. We have now under this government an affordable option of private health cover—a choice to take out a policy and a burden removed from public hospitals. Of course, when we talk about exclusions in cover, let us never forget that the greatest exclusion of all is not being able to get into a public hospital because you have a 25,000-patient waiting list. That is what I call an exclusion. So do not start complaining about small exclusions in policies that exist right across the insurance sector. What we have now is a viable private health alternative to public hospital and health delivery.