"Means testing passed the senate this morning."

How proud you must now be, 579, to force people to buy a product they don't want so that your friends who sell that product will get rich.

In British-ruled India, this was called the salt-tax.

Do you mind explaining your comment so we can all understand it.

"Do you mind explaining your comment so we can all understand it"

Certainly - we are forced to purchase private health insurance because of the Medicare-surcharge tax. That includes even those of us who do not wish to receive medical services (as well as those of us who wish to pay for them from their own pocket).

The government's main argument is that it prevents the wealthy from benefiting from Medicare at the expense of the poor working class, but nobody ever allowed the wealthy to opt out of Medicare, nobody ever asked us whether we are interested in having those Medicare benefits in the first place!

The government in collusion with the AMA does that in order to make their friends, the doctors, rich.

I would not know how much the medi care tax is now. If you want to finance your own medical bills, go ahead, i am sure you would not be pleased with the costs and charges. An extra 700,000 people have joined private insurance since 2010.
I am not sure where you get making doctors rich from medi care comes from.
Every body has medi care, or medi care and private. If you have none of that you should not be here.
Not very well explained.

That talk of an "iron-clad guarantee" made from Opposition got me all nostalgic.

A certain Mr Abbott, speaking as Health Minister in 2004 gave "an absolutely rock solid, ironclad commitment" to keep the Medicare Plus Safety Net in place after the election.

When is was later dumped his excuse was "during the election campaign, I had not the slightest inkling that there would ever be an intention to change this".

Now, was he lying before the election or did he lie afterwards?

The media had also revealed that the benefits being paid were heavily skewed toward high income electorates.

It all sounds so familiar.

Dear r0bert,

“I'll quite happily stop getting any middle class welfare if there is some protection for me against price rises caused by government inteference in the market and a removal of compulsion to subsidise others for the consequences of their own choices.”

Three letters...USA.

Dear Pericles,

“at the macro level, the system gets insurance premiums as well as taxpayers money, and the consumer gets greater choice.”

“But governments have a problem in balancing this out. Contributors to PHI have already paid their taxes - should they not get a little tax relief on their premium expenses? And the answer seems to be, within reason, yes.”

Or to put it another way the system gets a percentage of insurance premiums after the insurance companies have taken out their costs and profits and paid their shareholders dividends. Some consumers, not the greater percentage, get some choice but the more valued commodity they have purchased is a licence to jump the queue. Should they get a tax break on top of it? Nup.

Dear Yuyutsu,

I personally have no problem with the state paying the reasonable medical expenses of the wealthy if they are prepared to join the growing queue. I think there is a sleight of hand happening when we drop the top tax rate then slug people with the Medicare surcharge.

To me the government should be doing all it can to prevent us going down the American path. This latest measure in a small way helps.