Private health premiums to rise in 2020
Health Minister Greg Hunt has approved a smaller than usual rise in private health-insurance premiums.
Private health insurance premiums will rise by a relatively low average of 2.92 per cent in early 2020, the federal government has announced.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Saturday that he had approved price rises to take effect in April 2020. The 2.92 per cent would be the lowest average premium increase in 19 years.
Mr Hunt sent the insurers back to the drawing board on calculating their level of premium increases last month when the average figure presented by insurers was deemed too high.
The minister had been insistent he wanted price rises to stay under 3 per cent.
Last year’s premium increase was 3.25 per cent, significantly lower than the recent trend.
Next year’s premium increase is lower than the 3.8 per cent inflation rate for medical and hospital services this year, but still above CPI.
Private Healthcare Australia said funds had found efficiencies and used retained capital to keep the average premium rise for 2020 low.
The announcement of next year’s premium increase comes as the government continues to look for ways to make private health insurance more affordable and attractive to young people, who are dumping their cover in droves.
Allowing insurers to fund more services outside of the hospital system is being considered, and Mr Hunt this year pushed through a gold, silver bronze system for classifying health insurance designed to make the system easier to understand.
It also introduced a new 10 per cent discount for young people aged between 18 and 29 who took out cover. More than 380,000 young people have received these discounts since April this year.
There’s also been reforms to the cost of medical devices, and waiting periods for those seeking mental health care have been waived.
From April 1, 2020, a single person will pay an average of 68c extra per week and a family on average will pay $1.99 more a week.
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