yes..GET RID OF IT..WHY?
WE DONT WANT..government...<<<..directly..competing..with other businesses.>>

no..they dont want..the competition
lol..they..do love.the forced subsidies..plus no..competition

<<..If sold,..a private organization..could get greater profits..>>

now..where would these
EXTRA PROFITS come..from[tax payers..and customers?]*[thin air?]

, government is directly competing with other businesses.

<<..Secondly for a company with a supposed market value of $4bn, its profit of $400m over 2 years gives an annual return of 5% which is feeble by market standards...>>

yet so..if only 400customers..the extra=1 million..EACH
if..one million..that=extra 400bucks.each EXTRA..[give or take gst/bank-charges/special fees]

<<..If sold, a private organization
could get greater profits,..and pay company tax>>

lol
yeah..[after the TAX DEDUCTABLE..'s
of paying..off new*..4 billion..DEBT/plus..[with/our compulsory super..or free govt yanki dollars..at zero intrest

compounding/interest
shrinking customer wealth=?

get real..man
there are no free lunches..
only..infinite us dollars to buy up..any asset..
into future..cash-cows..that triple..the costs of GOVT was SET UP to..serve-us...in..extra fees PLUS charges/levies fees other charges so easy added on top of the real-bill

all..bought up..with..our..COMPULSORY SUpER*[or yank-paper
so..by..ever increasing fees and charges..we buy our own..super off[maybe]..but wont own..the assets[till..govt locks up..the criminals..or they repent their thefts

coming up..with all/this ENRON-esq..capitalist rubbish
for..their colluding mates..backers..[and their defenders!]..jail the lot..SEIZE BACK as PROCEEDS OF CRIME..so yeah go ahead.,.make my day

sell sell sell
[go2hell]

blah blah blah..by their works will..ye know them.

That makes government ownership an even worse deal for policyholders, Grim.

>>...not only does Medibank already pay taxes just like any other -private- company, but also pays a dividend of 200m/PA into the gov's coffers.<<

And this largesse comes straight out of the consumer's pocket.

The industry is very tightly regulated, operates on "community rating" - i.e. the insurance risk is spread across the entire population - and buys its hospital care from the same hospital groups, so the cost base is identical across the inductry. Medibank trades on its size to give the image of being more "secure" than the smaller players in the market, and can therefore charge higher premiums. However, this is just smoke and mirrors when you look at the content of the policies themselves.

But the reality is they are not able to be properly competitive with other Health Funds, when the government keeps dipping into their pockets every couple of years.

Ahem. That should read "industry". Rats.

which really makes it a "user pays" taxation system, which effectively subsidises income tax.
I don't have much of a problem with that.