Disputes about the private health sector have reached unusual heights this year as the NSW government and private hospital groups, including one owned by a foreign private equity firm, have tried to raid health funds to fix their own budget problems.

The most astonishing thing about these unprecedented cash grabs has been the deliberate lack of acknowledgment that health funds manage consumers’ money for their healthcare. When you take money from a health fund, you take money from their members who then have to pay more for their insurance.