Petition Update: the Health Minister’s Response

More than 13,000 of you signed our petition calling for greater transparency in private health insurance. You overwhelmed us with 10,000 signatures in the first 3 days.

At the FiftyUp Club we heard your voice and felt your passion. And as promised, we took your loud and powerful voice to the Health Minister, Peter Dutton.

The Ministers’ office responded to the FiftyUp Club petition:

“Your organization believes premium changes can apply to different age brackets –that is not the case.

If a 55 year old buys Product A and a 25 year old buys Product A – they will pay the same premium under the community rating system in which private health insurers operate.”

BUT… we surveyed more than 5000 of you over 50 and asked for your premium amount before and after the April 1 increase. We analysed the data, and found the average increase reported was 9.8%. That’s one-and-a-half times the national average of 6.2% published by the Federal Government.

This huge discrepancy, between the national average increase, and the average increase faced by our members is because the premiums for specific health insurance plans that people over 50 prefer to take up (plans with cover for things like joint replacement) are rising faster than other plans preferred by young people (plans with cover for things like pregnancy).

This means that the national average figure released by the government, although technically accurate, camouflages the much higher annual increase in health insurance premiums faced by most people 50 and over each year.

The Government has the necessary data to assess plan increases and estimate the overall effect on these increases for different age groups based on their plan preferences. This analysis would be an estimate, but it would much more accurately reflect the crippling price rise reality faced by older Australians.

We want to thank you for your feedback and thank you for your voice. Our numbers give us the power to bring these things to the attention in the National Capital and in the media, you can watch the story on Channel Seven news here.

Of course there’s nothing stopping you from contacting the Minister’s Office, and passing on your view on this campaign in a considered and respectful way. You can contact the Minister’s Office here, to pass on your view about the impact of Health insurance Premium rises on people 50 and over.