Patricia Dasic
I think there are two points here. First, could it be that large amounts of money salted away somewhere in reserves is part of the attraction for big insurance companies like BUPA wanting to acquire our private health insurers? And, wouldn’t it be better if any such money was put to use providing health care rather than sitting idle while accruing investment income for the private funds?
SOME time ago while living in regional Victoria our local hospital, which covers an area from Geelong to the SA border, was in dire need of about $20 million to upgrade the Emergency Department. One year the small local private health fund GMHBA announced it had made a surplus of $8 million. The following year it made another “surplus” of $15 million. I was provoked into writing a letter to the Geelong Advertiser pointing out that this very small private health fund was making such a profit over just two years while the local public hospital couldn’t get its hands on less money for its ED which would serve a large catchment area for many years.

My temerity in saying so brought down the wrath of God upon my head. The CEO of GMHBA replied in print that private health funds did not make “profits”. They made “surpluses” which were held in reserve to cover future claims by their members.

Well, that’s okay, I thought, but if the GMHBA minnow is making a $23 million profit in two years and salting it away somewhere how much is the industry as a whole tucking into its vaults?

When I tried to find out how much money, in aggregate, the private health funds had in their reserves I wasn’t at all successful. I found there is an organisation called the Private Health Insurance Administration Council, which is supposed to garner information about the private health funds for the government. The information I was seeking should have been available from them, but they were less than forthcoming. They wouldn’t speak about it on the phone and kept directing me to their website, but the information wasn’t on the website.

I think there are two points here. First, could it be that large amounts of money salted away somewhere in reserves is part of the attraction for big insurance companies like BUPA wanting to acquire our private health insurers? And, wouldn’t it be better if any such money was put to use providing health care rather than sitting idle while accruing investment income for the private funds?

Most public hospitals now, it seems, have a dedicated person whose job it is to recruit private patients. When people turn up at a hospital they are asked if they have private health insurance and, if so, are pressurised to be admitted as a private rather than public patient. This is profitable for the hospital but means also that such people get admitted immediately. This must surely mean they are jumping the public queue.

One of the arguments for providing the private health rebate was that it would take the pressure off public hospitals. It hasn’t done that and it seems it is contributing to the public waiting lists when private patients get in first.

I also find it interesting, given the recent musings by our unnamed Minister on the possibility of just buying private health insurance for Tasmanians, that their most recent health consultant Heather Wellington is connected to the private health insurance industry as a director of such a fund. If she has had any influence on government thinking on this that would surely be a conflict of interest. We have also seen the federal government appoint a person at the pinnacle of private health insurance as the Chair of the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, Dr Christine Bennett of MBF.

It looks to me as if there is a bit too much influence coming from the private health insurance lobby.