Then what's the point of having private health insurance?

This sounds like just another scheme to help the 10% of people out there who can't organise themselves enough to take care of their own lives, which means the rest of us have to put up with nanny like rubbish like this.

Here's a novel idea - people actually just voluntarily save a small part of their income in case they need it at some stage in their life. How radical is that? Imagine actually taking some responsibility for your own bloody wellbeing.

No, let's rather bring in another form of coercion to help the fools in society who don't want to or are unable to do their own thinking.

While I personally would prefer to get the money back in the form of lower taxes, if the money did have to go into health, this is a pretty good way to do it.

Clearly, the policy needs some tweaking - for example, how do immigrants or new children get access to this? And equally, what happens to the money when people leave the country?

But that aside, this is quite a good idea. What I really like about it is that it introduces a level of personal responsibility into the system - if you do things like drink while pregnant or when you're driving, or if you smoke which make it more likely that you'll need heathcare, then you're going to drain your account more quickly. The power is in your hands.

I think that's an important concept to get into the health system, and if this is the way to do it then I'm happy

The thing about health insurance is that the people who have the highest incomes don't use the health system. If you become sick or have an accident you use health care. However if you are sick for more than 3 months can you afford to keep paying health insurance. As most Asutralians are 2 paypackets away from financial ruin the answer is that most Asutralians can't afford health insurance premiums if they are not working.

Then there is the statistic that people use health services heavily in their last 2 years of life whether they die of old age or die young.

If you are deemed chronically ill even if you pay your health insurance premiums you may be treated as though you are a public patient, this applies to all car accident patients and elderly patient.

Kevvy - a very complex shifting of deckchairs, just build a bridge, get over it and accept that the most efficient way of providing health care for those who need it is to lose the tax rebates on private health insurance.

Why not forgetthe tax cuts and use the money for setting up measures to allow for health continuance. Okay for the younger since when old such options may be less relevant. To gain some control the measures could carry a loding of patient cost for those who have not availed themselves of check ups and life style measures.

I don't remember the words used in the election promise regarding tax cuts but I'm fairly confident that most people interpreted the promise to mean tax cuts which gave them control over the money. This proposal would leave most people feeling that the government had not been honest with them. While we may be used to that feeling it's not a habit I'd want to encourage.

That point aside if the approach of using the money in a way that did not add it to the retail market was taken I'd rather see the money offsetting my mortgage (maybe with some provisions which stopped me refinancing against it or getting direct access if I sold my home etc so that it did not create inflationary pressures).

At a guess there are a whole bunch of other ways it could be used and depending on their circumstances different people would have different priorities.

Even more to the point I want control over my own earnings rather than having a paternalistic outsider determining how my income should be used. The tax burden is bad enough without having others controlling how the remainder is used.

R0bert

Wait until they bring out a bank account for your groceries - we'll have to divert a percentage of our wages or tax cuts into the tax-free Grocery account, which is only allowed to be spent at registered grocery stores.

Then we will no doubt get the Clothing Account, Childern School Lunches Account and Gym Club Membership Account to go with our Superannuation Account, First Home Owner Deposit Account and our Medical Expenses Account.

Heaven help us, the world has gone crazy. Where has self-responsibility gone?