My wife read a Facebook post from a lady we know from the USA about the increase in their monthly private health insurance premium. It read “Opened my mail today. $2,069.03. What my “covers nothing until $6,300 a person is spent, not even meds” but costs right now over $1100 but is going UP to Jan 1.”
$US 2,069.03 is equivalent to $AU 2,722.27. That’s incredible! And they cannot make any claim until they have prepaid $US 6,300.00 ($AU 8,286.71) per person. Even though they are not new members of the fund there is a waiting period of premium input that has to be accumulated in their fund before they can claim.
We have top cover health fund cover with all sorts of extras through a very popular health fund and our premium is $AU 411.50 per month. We pay $AU 2,310.77 less per month than our friends do will pay in the USA. What a difference!
On checking the average full-time weekly earnings in Australia in 2016 is $AU 1 516.00 and in the USA is $AU 1,088.15, so the average weekly wage in Australia is more than in USA.
Health fund premiums vary in Australia. So, I tried to check out more costs of premiums that various funds charge in USA. I got very confused as there is a huge range of premium costs and so many variables that go into determining the rate. I certainly would not say everyone in USA pays the same as the couple who did the Facebook post
From my personal knowledge of healthcare in USA I do not believe they will get any better quality of health care than we get here in Australia. It is not a case of if you pay more you get more. I believe we have a premium quality private health care system compared to what is available in other countries.
We have our public health care system, which in my view is very good compared to what is available for public health care in most other countries, including the USA. We are seeing an increasing difference in the quality of care available through our private and public systems. I believe the gap in quality of care between public and private will increase as there is increasing financial pressure on the public healthcare system
