Premiums up as 750,000 ditch cover - Australia

This sounds a lot like here in the US, consumers dropping their private health insurance due to rising costs, except they have a public health care system to go to when ending their private health care insurance. BD

ONE of the architects of Medicare has predicted 750,000 people will leave private health insurance, with premiums to rise by just over 5 per cent, as a result of government policy changes. But John Deeble, now an emeritus fellow with the Australian National University, still expects the Government's increase in the Medicare levy surcharge threshold to leave both the private and public health systems intact, The Australian reports.

But groups such as the Australian Health Insurance Association have tipped as many as 913,000 people will drop their cover, relying instead on the country's public health system.