Health Insurance in Australia: Factors, Statistics, and Coverage

Running Head: HEALTH INSURANCE
HEALTH INSURANCE
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HEALTH INSURANCE 2
Introduction
Medical care in Australia is provided and financed by the Australian regime as well as
the private sector and nonprofit making societies. The government offers more than 65% of
funding for Medicare and the related programs. Persons contribute more than half of NGO
funding.
All citizens and permanent residents in Australia are entitled to Medicare. There are other
available programs for particular groups of people like the mandatory insurance schemes over a
personal injury that results from vehicle or workplace occurrences. The existing healthcare levy
that is paid by the citizens who earn over a given amount of cash is 2%.The ones who make more
receive additional surcharge in a situation where they lack health insurance. Medical costs in
Australia for the people visiting the country are paid by travel cover or under a health bargain.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the health insurance and the factors that affect health
insurance in Australia. The statistics of the insured people will also be discussed and also the
available workforce in the healthcare sector. There have been several groups that aid the
insurance sector and they will also be discussed together with the segmentation done in payment
of taxes for different social classes in Australia.
Medicare
Medicare fee is financed by Medicare levy and it is mandatory for most citizens, and it is
administered under the tax system. The minister does administration of national health policy for
health in the federal government. Political polarization has been used for a long time as the
funding model for healthcare in Australia, whereby the government plays a crucial part in
shaping the national healthcare policy (Chrisopoulos, Harford, & Ellershaw, 2016). Citizens

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who have exceptional cases of sicknesses, foreign residents and low-income earners may apply
to be discharged from paying the 2%, and the low-income earners can ask for discounts. The sum
paid by Medicare comprises; patient cost of health centered on Medicare gains program.
Medicare covers 100% of the program charge for an expert and 85% of professional and other
services. Patients are eligible to other franchises, and they may also be eligible to additional
gains after they have crossed the threshold which is based on the annual expenditure (Mossialos,
et al., 2016). The government spending on healthcare is about 67%, which is below the OECD
mean of 73%. The patient pays the remaining health fee unless the service provider decides to
charge the planned fee only hence sparing the patient’s out of pocket expenses. Where there are
specific costs not protected, the patient will be required to pay for them, e.g. ambulances costs
and dentistry. The services that are not protected by Medicare may be included in part or in full
by the health cover.
Statistics
Recent research showed that on average, there is one doctor per every 320 people and one
hospital bed per every 240 people. There is a massive deficiency of health specialists in Australia
in spite of the growth in the labor force in recent past. The rate of employment in healthcare in
Australia as of 2014 stood at 22.1%, and this was a slight improvement from 965,000 to
1,168,632. In a sample of 10 first world nations, Australia scoped the eighth position in its
populace utilization of prescription in 14 programs in 2010 and 2013 (Whitty & Littlejohns,
2015). The medications contemplated were chosen on the basis that the circumstances cured had
increased occurrence, predominance or mortality, caused critical long haul dismalness and
brought about large amounts of consumption and considerable improvements in counteractive
action or treatment had been made over the most recent ten years (Williams & Smith, 2015).

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The examination noted formidable challenges in a cross-outskirt correlation of medicine
utilization.
Health Insurance
There is an extra tax of 1.5% that is levied on the high-income earners who do not have
insurance covers. Persons can take a health insurance cover that will stand on behalf of out of
pocket expenses with a strategy that selects particular services. A person with an insurance cover
is left out of pocket costs since the facilities in private medical centers are more expensive than
the cover cost. The life and the earning capability of a breadwinner is the most crucial asset in an
average family (Pendzialek, Simic, & Stock, 2016). Viewing the home and family as the
asset for a man, the family is vulnerable to a catastrophe if it is not insurance. The two risks
which an income earner faces include immature death and economic demise. This is where
insurance finds its function in a man's life.
Health insurance is a vital factor due to the unpredictable nature of expenditure on
healthcare. Individuals know the need for future medical services, but they are not aware of the
extent of spending on healthcare services. Research shows that the shorter the period spend in a
hospital, the higher the disparity in healthcare among individuals and the variation decreases
with an increase in time spent in hospitals (Yang, et al., 2017). One way that is used to improve