Free public hospital care is our fundamental right

Public hospitals pressuring patients to use their private health cover in a money-grabbing push is wrong on every level, writes Sue Dunlevy. Tricking patients into paying is not what our health care system stands for.

Public hospitals are underfunded but bullying seriously ill cancer patients and desperate mothers of sick toddlers to get their health funds to pay for their treatment to solve the problem has got to stop.

Free public hospital care is a fundamental right for all Australians, it’s what makes our health system the envy of many countries but health fund members are being tricked into thinking they have to pay.

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In the last year I was twice a witness to the extreme pressure public hospitals employ to get people to use their private health funds to pay for care they are entitled to for free.

My young nephew who was undergoing gruelling treatment for cancer had fallen ill with an infection and had to be hospitalised.

We all have the right to free public hospital care without the pressure of out of pocket costs. Picture: istock

Before he had even settled into his public hospital bed a staff member appeared to pressure my sister into using her health cover.

When she said no and explained she wasn’t working while she cared for her sick son and could not risk any out of pocket expenses the staff member kept pressuring her.

She was made to feel she was letting the hospital down by refusing and when I backed her up and said she was entitled to free care the bossy staff member told her he would “have to report you to my manager”.

Earlier this year, a highly stressed colleague who went to a public hospital emergency department with terribly sick toddlers was asked to use her health cover to pay for their treatment.

She called me and asked what she should do.

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“Ask them if you will get any benefit from using your cover like a private room and the doctor of your choice,” I said.

The answer to both those questions was no and she refused.

These pressure tactics are being used on people whilst they are in the midst of a health crisis, when they can’t think clearly and in some cases may not even properly understand their right to free care in a public hospital — and it’s not fair.

Private health insurers say public hospitals now employ staff whose full time job is to approach health fund members and get them to bill their cover for public care.

And they says its reached perverse levels in South Australia where the state is contracting 13 private hospitals to treat public patients while giving privately insured patients priority in public hospitals.

Pressure tactics are being used on people whilst they are in the midst of a health crisis — and it’s not fair. Picture: istock

The number of patients cajoled into using their cover in public hospitals is rising by seven per cent a year and its now costing health funds over $1.6 billion a year.

What the hospitals don’t tell you is that when you elect to bill your health fund for care you are entitled to for free, it’s pushing up your health fund premiums.

Insurers calculate premiums would fall by $100 a year for families if public hospital care was not billed to health funds.

Worse still many patients end up being charged gap fees of up to $1,500 when they use their health fund in a public hospital, if they’d stayed as public patients their care would have been free.

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But health funds are not blameless in this game, while they don’t want their members to use their cover in public hospitals many of them offer products that only cover people in a public hospital.

The Australian Health and Hospitals Association rightly asks why funds are selling these products when they don’t want to pay when their members use them.

These products are a con and pure junk, they cover you for something you are entitled to for free under Medicare and should not be allowed to attract a government subsidy.

Former health minster Susan Ley pledged to scrap them as part of recent health fund reforms but the industry successfully fought the measure claiming it would add 16 per cent a year to health fund premiums.

The number of patients cajoled into using their cover in public hospitals is rising. Picture: istock

If health funds want to be taken seriously about public hospital charges they need to get rid of these junk policies.

There is a serious underfunding of the nation’s public hospitals as the population ages.

The AMA’s report card shows waiting times for elective surgery are at the highest level ever recorded.

Elective surgery admissions per 1,000 population actually went backwards by 1.5 per cent nationally.

Only 64 per cent of urgent patients are being seen within the recommended 30-minute time frame in emergency departments.

Public hospitals are just that, they are meant to be funded by our public tax system, it’s time state and federal government fixed the problem.

Sue Dunlevy is News Corp’s national health correspondent.

Originally published as Free public hospital care is our fundamental right