Comments by "Goatcha" (@Goatcha_M) on "WOW! American Reacts to Australian Health Care" video.

  1. Was a lot better 20 years ago, before John Howard took away 30% of its funding to pay for the Private Health Insurance Rebate. Still easily better than the US lack of a system though.
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  2. Steve Lehto covered a case just yesterday of someone being charged $700 by an ER in America when they were never even seen by a Doctor, they walked out after waiting unattended for 7 hours.
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  3. Because of the 30% Government rebate and the lack of a Medicare Tax Levy for those with Private Health Insurance, if you earn over 50 or 60,000 dollars a year, Private Health Insurance becomes quite incentivised, especially as for every year you don't have it the tax cost of getting PHI increases. PHI is still completely unaffordable for people earning less than 35-40K though, which is about 50% of the population. The numbers of people who had PHI were definitely lower before the rebate, but mostly it just benefits those who could already afford it.
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  4. One thing this vid didn't cover was ambulance. Ambulance in Australia is semi-private, but still nationally integrated. Membership is just $50 a year, $100 for families and provides complete coverage. As opposed to the $1200 plus it costs without coverage. Pensioners are covered free.
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