A recent commercial highlighting private health insurance featuring a lesbian couple kissing and two men (in a same sex relationship, with a child) really turned me off. It came across as a way to get some people into expensive private health insurance.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/02/08/medibank-celebrated-controversial-ad

Who is paying for this? Two examples:

1. The costs of this commercial paid for by Medibank Private
2. An LGBTI community grant costing Medibank Private $10,000

http://www.medibank.com.au/About-Us/Media-Centre-Details.aspx?news=602

If people want to be part of a same sex relationship (I'm not against that), but Private Health insurers, doing things like this is a disgusting waste of money.

//It came across as a way to get some people into expensive private health insurance.//

That is generally the point of advertising.

//Who is paying for this?//

Medibank Private Ltd.

//If people want to be part of a same sex relationship (I'm not against that), but Private Health insurers, doing things like this is a disgusting waste of money.//

If advertising is such a waste of money, why do so many companies do so much of it? And why do companies that advertise heavily, like McDonald's, do so well? I don't like advertising either, but it can be effective at generating profits so it isn't necessarily a waste of money.

Nathan,

Members (like me) pay for it. It's a private organsation. It's a totally unnecessary ad. Weirdos are entitled to private health cover, by dint of common sense and discrimination laws. As Medibank Private should know this, and they don't have a clue about the peculiarities of their members (they just take their money), the commercial is a stupid waste of members' money.I expect that Medibank Private will be directly chastised by many of its members. Personally, I'm becoming immune to human stupidity - it is almost the norm.

Ttbn "Members (like me) pay for it. It's a private organsation. It's a totally unnecessary ad. Weirdos are entitled to private health cover, by dint of common sense and discrimination laws"
If they let 'weirdos' like you take their money ttbn, then why not anyone else?

Medibank Private is a business like any other, and they rightly couldn't care less who their customers live with, as long as they pay their premiums.
Apart from obvious homophobia by the usual suspects on this forum, I don't see anything wrong with this advert at all.

Dear Nathan,

By not having a television I manage to avoid seeing that or any other advertisement.

However, if I become aware that someone is advertising, how more so if they attempt to advertise at me, then I make a tick to try to avoid their products and services. In my accounts, your post has thus placed a demerit point against Medibank Private.

If you are to use the products or services of someone who advertises, then you can be sure that some of your money went into advertising rather than into the quality of the product or service that you were interested in: why pay for something you don't want? why pay for something that injures others by seducing them to part with their money?

Suseonline:

“Apart from obvious homophobia by the usual suspects on this forum”

They might be homophobic but at least they are not fascist. Only fascists try to silence their opponents by using derogatory labels in the hope that such bullying will make them remain silent.

If I were homosexual I know which people I would prefer to be in power.

It is a useful distraction for a Fund that has been in the media for serious management problems, including the recent loss of a CEO.

Oh dear me, did I touch a raw nerve with you Phanto?

Anyone who has issues with viewing adverts showing two same-sex couples just going about their everyday, legal activities, has much worse problems than they imagine homosexuality causes.

Pathetic really...

Suseonline:

You changed the subject - the subject I was drawing attention to was your bullying.

If you think that what I was doing was bullying Phanto, then you really are a delicate flower....

That's what all bullies say - the other person has the problem.

//Only fascists try to silence their opponents by using derogatory labels in the hope that such bullying will make them remain silent.//

Amazing. It's as if he has no grasp of irony whatsoever.

Toni Lavis:

That's what all bullies say - the other person has the problem.

What is ironic is that you should be attracted to a discussion about bullying.

//That's what all bullies say - the other person has the problem.//

ROFLMAO

Of course, phanto: you're a noble crusader for truth, justice and the American way, and we're all big mean bullies who are just picking on you. Cool story, bro. Do you think anyone will buy it?

Toni Lavis:

Well you obviously bought it! Nowhere have I said that anyone was picking on me personally nor did I suggest that anyone else but Suseonline was guilty of bullying.

You seem a bit excitable about it all. You don’t see any irony at all in that?

Homosexual behavior is not a good thing to do it's against the laws of God and all his teachings. This is as well as sex for men in the backside, is very unhealthy and not very clean because the backside is where all the waste stuff comes out and its not for sex at all. For this Medibank program with homosexual is not a very good idea it's like Medibank is pushing for homosexual behavior all out in the superbs and everywhere else and I think its wrong.

No one is asking you to do that 'behaviour' Misanthrope, and it is legal, so your main problem is a religious one then? There are dirty behaviours done under the name of religion too....

Susanonline this is very destgusting stuff for man to do. Do you not think so? I think you are a doctor or somebody like that, you work in the hospital so you know very much, this is very dirty and not higenic type things? Surely you of all the people, know this to be be true? This is where the AIDS started in mankind because of unnaturel things homosexual man do. Sorry for my poor writing my writing not so good, but my speaking much better I think?

sbs has been promoting every type of perversion for years with tax payer money. They figure they might as well make some money out promoting this perversion.

//nor did I suggest that anyone else but Suseonline was guilty of bullying.//

No, you've also suggested - perhaps not intentionally - that you are guilty of bullying: you've used the derogatory labels 'fascist' and 'bully' in the hope that such bullying will make Suse refrain from calling homophobes homophobes (just out of interest, if it walks like a homophobe and swims like a homophobe and quacks like a homophoe but calling it a homophobe is bullying, what should we call it instead?). Since "only fascists try to silence their opponents by using derogatory labels in the hope that such bullying will make them remain silent" then it follows, by your own reasoning and statments, that you are also a fascist bully.

//This is as well as sex for men in the backside, is very unhealthy and not very clean//

//this is very dirty and not higenic type things?//

So it's all just about the personal hygiene issues involved with anal intercourse, eh? I assume, then, that you would be less disgusted by gay men fellating each other, because that is less likely to result in infection. And that you would be more disgusted by gay men sharing intravenous needles, because that is far more likely to transmit infections than anal intercourse.

Or at least, I would assume that if I actually believed for one second that what bothered you was hygiene concerns. But Blind Freddy could see that what really bothers you is the idea of two men being intimate with each other.

Why all the disingenuousness? You aren't fooling anybody, so why bother maintaining the farcical pretence that your concerns are all about the health risks of anal intercourse when they are obviously about so much more?

//This is where the AIDS started in mankind because of unnaturel things homosexual man do. Sorry for my poor writing my writing not so good, but my speaking much better I think?//

Unfortunately, your comprehension is shite. HIV was not created in a clandestine Government laboratory, and it certainly wasn't some divine retribution handed down by the magic sky fairy to punish the people that he created gay. HIV started in mankind because it is a zoonotic infection which most likely jumped species due to African tribesmen hunting and eating apes and monkeys. Possibly some of those hunters were homosexual, but I think it's drawing a long bow to describe bushmeat hunting as unnatural, or even unnaturel.

Mr Tony Lavis sir you write better then me but sir you must say and admit this type of homosexual actions are unatural because this act is called sodemy. This area of men and woman is for the important reason to get out all the waste stuff we all must do,or we get sick if we dont. This area is not for sex it can not ever be able to produse any children from this area. Sir with respect you must say its not natural act. its an unatural act nothing else.

o sung Wu, it may be an unnatural act to you, but it obviously is not for gay men. I find it unnatural that some people actually believe there are invisible beings in the sky, but most religions are legal.
Having that sort of sex won't affect them fathering children at all, so I am not sure what you are on about there.

If there was a god, then he/she made the homosexual men and women too, am I correct? What two consenting adults legally do together in their own homes is no one else's business.
If Medibank private wanted people to talk about it's business by doing these adverts, then they have succeeded....and all the homophobes unwillingly added to it. Lol!

Toni Lavis:

“if it walks like a homophobe and swims like a homophobe and quacks like a homophoe but calling it a homophobe is bullying, what should we call it instead?”

Why do you need to call it anything at all? The point of the discussion is to exchange ideas. Whether the person you are arguing with has a fear or dislike of homosexuals is totally irrelevant. Only their ideas are important. When you resort to labels it has stopped being a discussion about ideas and focuses on personal traits and that is bullying.

You or anyone else has no way of knowing that any member of this forum has a fear or dislike of homosexuals. You presume that because they do not agree with homosexual behaviour or homosexual’s interpretation of their own behaviour or same-sex marriage that they are homophobic. Fear is a feeling manifest in the body. Liking and disliking are also feelings based on attraction or repulsion. How can you tell what feelings are manifest in the body of someone you cannot even see?

If you have no way of knowing what another person feels or likes then how can you accurately claim that they are homophobic? If you have no evidence to back up your claim then why else would you make that claim unless you want to bully and intimidate the other person with whom you are arguing?

Unlike homophobia fascism is not a feeling but a way of thinking and behaving which says any method is ok in the pursuit of silencing dissenters. You can see such behaviour in some forum members who resort to bullying in order to try and silence others. Pointing out such behaviour is not bullying but an attempt to keep the discussion focused on arguing about ideas and we all have a responsibility to maintain those standards. If it happens I, for one, am going to point it out and if someone does not like being exposed as a bully then it is easily fixed – stop being one.

//this type of homosexual actions are unatural because this act is called sodemy.//

No, it isn't. And even if it was, calling something something 'sodemy' wouldn't make it unnatural. The words we English speakers give to particular phenomena has no bearing on whether or not those phenomena are natural.

//This area of men and woman is for the important reason to get out all the waste stuff we all must do,or we get sick if we dont.//

No, o sung wu, your mouth is there for a lot of reasons, but eliminating 'waste' really isn't one of them. Regular vomiting is a bad thing. Your mouth is there for eating, talking, breathing, and, in my opinion, cunnilingus/fellatio depending on your preferences.

//This area is not for sex it can not ever be able to produse any children from this area.//

Sorry, I don't understand how this a bad thing. If you can get your rocks off with zero possibility of knocking the girl up, where is the harm in that? I have never known any woman to refuse cunnilingus because there is no chance of it impregnating them. I suspect they'd be less willing to receive it if they could get pregnant that way.

....

//Sir with respect you must say its not natural act. its an unatural act nothing else.//

I don't have to do anything of the sort. I don't find it unnatural and I enjoy cunnilingus, so even though some people may call it sodomy, even though I'll never get a woman pregnant that way, and even though that seems to offend you cranky old tories, I'm unlikely to ever pass up the chance to eat pussy when it presents itself.

Or were you talking about anal intercourse? Well I think most of the stuff I said still applies... I dunno. Most of you blokes seem to be more interested in the subject than myself.

But it does worry me that this argument that says 'it's not sex unless it can produce kids' might gain more favour within the Sexual Morality Squad of the Fun Police, and they'll try to stamp out cunnilingus. So I try to stand up for people having sex in the manner they find most agreeable, whatever form it may take (within the bounds of the law) - even if it can't produce issue.

//Only their ideas are important.//

//Liking and disliking are also feelings based on attraction or repulsion. How can you tell what feelings are manifest in the body of someone you cannot even see?//

I can't. Nobody can. Mind reading, despite what a lot so-called 'psychics' would have you believe, is impossible.

On an entirely text-based forum, it doesn't matter what you believe. What matters is what you write. Nothing stops a person from writing something completely alien to their personal beliefs, and as long as they do it convincingly enough then a reader might believe that the writer truly holds these false sentiments. On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

http://tinyurl.com/jb7m2l3

But when a dog types 'black people all suck', you know it's a racist statement even if you don't know whether he's really a racist dog or a nice dog pretending to be racist. And calling it out as a racist statement is just pointing out the obvious, not bullying the dog who posted it. Similarly, when people post obviously homophobic comments you can't tell if they're really homophobic, or just pretending - but you can tell if it's a homophobic comment, and calling out a homophobic comment as homophobic isn't bullying the person who posted it.

Toni Lavis:

What is the point of ‘calling out’ homophobia? Everyone is entitled to have a fear or dislike of homosexuals if they want to just as everyone is entitled to have racist views if they want to.

What they are not entitled to do is to discriminate on the basis of those views. Nor are they entitled to behave aggressively or unjustly. They are also entitled to free speech and have the right to express their views. All of those things are enshrined in law.

They may present arguments in favour of leaving the Marriage Act as it is, for example. They may well be homophobic but what advantage to those in favour of change is gained by calling out their homophobia?

The law should be changed because it is reasonable to do so and good reasons are arrived at by discussion and argument of the ideas so that the truth comes to the surface. The only thing that needs to be discussed to arrive at the truth are the ideas which underpin both sides of an argument.

Labelling a person as homophobic does absolutely nothing to further the process of coming to the truth since it is irrelevant to the process.

If there is no good reason why ‘calling out’ should be introduced to the process of discussion then we can only assume a bad reason. In my opinion it is done in order hurt the homophobic person in the hope that they will go away and will not be heard. This frees those in favour of things like same-sex marriage to push through their agenda without opposition. They are not interested in the truth but only in getting what they want.

Trying to silence people is bullying behaviour it is important to call it out when it rears its ugly head in the discussion. It stifles the process of working towards the truth and it is indicative of people who do not care about the truth. It does not matter if someone is homophobic but it matters if they are a bully.

Hi there SUSEONLINE & TONI LAVIS...

Why are you giving me a hard time ? I've not written anything on this particular topic, on Medibank specifically or anything else for that matter ? I certainly don't mind engaging in a 'blue' provided I'm a willing participant, but this topic, why ?

'Members (like me) pay for it. It's a private organsation. It's a totally unnecessary ad.'

I receive 'tasty recipe ideas' with my Energy bill in a glossy pamphlet. I tried to argue that I didn't see this as a core function of delivering energy, and that the money saved could lower their customer's energy bills, but as usual with these cases the customer service rep was only interested in my specific case, so I was wasting my breath.

Perhaps they actually save customers money (assuming they pass some of the profit of delivering paid content with my energy bill, hahaha yeah right) but such details will forever remain a mystery

Toni Lavis,

"I don't like advertising either, but it can be effective at generating profits so it isn't necessarily a waste of money."

Firstly the Australian Government initiated the Private Health Insurance Rebate, and the following comes from Private Healthcare Australia.

"The Australian Government Rebate on private health insurance provides a reduction in the premium cost of private healthcare. It is recognition by the Australian Government that Australians with private healthcare are making a substantial financial contribution not only to their own healthcare but also to Australia’s healthcare system."

http://www.privatehealthcareaustralia.org.au/have-you-got-private-healthcare/private-health-insurance-rebate/

So why should these people (Australians - including those who are in same sex relationships, but say maybe or maybe not in private healthcare) be making questionable contributions, to advertisements, like the ones I mentioned?

After all costs are costs.

Finally to Yuyutsu - if people live in far out parts of the Australian countryside, they may not see advertising from Medibank Private. Considering a lot of people do shop in high density shopping malls or shopping centres - Medibank Private is out there (in a public environment) with an aim to get as many in as possible - with questionable advertising, I have mentioned. On the other side of advertising, we face Labor party scare campaigns or "advertising" over having to pay a GP tax.

Which one rationally do I go with?

Dear Nathan,

Despite visiting shopping centres when I need to purchase something there, I don't know whether they have ads in general or Medibank-Private ads in particular. This is because if there is an ad somewhere then I automatically avert my eyes from that filth. I no longer even consciously record it as it became a second-nature for me, but obviously it must add to making going to shopping centres an overall unpleasant experience, so I go there only when I really need to and do not linger longer than I need.

O sung wu, look at yesterday's posts on this topic. Is that you?
The writing seemed different to your usual style.
Is there two o sung wu's?

//So why should these people (Australians - including those who are in same sex relationships, but say maybe or maybe not in private healthcare) be making questionable contributions, to advertisements//

Because if the cost of advertisements is less than the amount of extra money the ads generate, then they are profitable. Companies making profits is the basis of the capitalist system. If nobody makes any profit, our economy will go pear-shaped. A lot of people don't like capitalism, and I personally regard it the same way Churchill viewed democracy: it is the worst system, except for all the others that have been tried so far.

//After all costs are costs.//

And profits are profits. You have to spend money to make money.

//like the ones I mentioned?//

This is what I find most interesting: Medibank are a big company who have run a lot of advertisements over the years. But it's only when they run ads depicting gay people that you suddenly get so worked up about them advertising. Funny how you never cared before.

It looks to me like you're more concerned about seeing gay people depicted on television than you are about Medibank's business decisions. In which case, you should drop the bullshyt pretence and say what you really think, instead of trying to invent progressively sillier reasons as to why Medibank shouldn't advertise when other private health insurers do.

Post script:

If you are offended by the content of any advertising you see, then you should lodge a complaint with the Advertising Standards Bureau: that's what they're for. If enough people complain about the same ad, then it will almost certainly be pulled.

https://adstandards.com.au/

What practical benefit do you hope to achieve by whinging about the ad on a forum like this? Tell somebody who cares - and who has the power to do something about it.

Toni Lavis,

"It looks to me like you're more concerned about seeing gay people depicted on television than you are about Medibank's business decisions. In which case, you should drop the bullshyt pretence and say what you really think, instead of trying to invent progressively sillier reasons as to why Medibank shouldn't advertise when other private health insurers do."

The question for me is "why" do Medibank Private as an Insurer need to do this? Other insurers clearly have not, and they do need to feel the need to go out and spend large amount of money on recent advertising, which produced the link that I found?

Currently the private health sector is subsidized (by the Federal Government.

"The private health insurance rebate which, despite being significantly curbed by the previous government, will still cost taxpayers over $6 billion this year" and "That funding would be far more effectively directed into health services rather than the pockets of people with private health insurance."

http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/09/29/private-health-insurance-rebate-a-huge-waste/?wpmp_switcher=mobile

Although this website is questioned by some, it at least here showed the costs.

So advertising like the one I mentioned, does nothing in terms of improving healthcare for any person, it is simply a disgusting waste of money (particularly when they are assisted by the government). Furthermore, the grant given by Medibank Private, I would argue fits into the same element.

Finally former Prime Minister Tony Abbott descridescribed the private health insurance rebate as “an article of faith.”

People, companies, groups, religions and others.... shouldn't need to stoop to low levels to sell their argument. It should be naturally within them, and able to be put out naturally, without expensive advertising or poor language, and the Medibank Private advertisement goes for a long time, compared to a lot of others. Why?

Hi there SUSEONLINE...

No, not to my knowledge? I read the thread concerned, and you're perfectly correct, it's attributed to me and it's definitely under my 'moniker' to be sure, but I've not expressed an opinion either way, relating to this specific Topic ?

A similar thing happened a couple of years ago, so I can only assume the computer is quite capable of engaging in some 'ducks 'n drakes' with old blokes like me, in order to confuse and bemuse ! Anyway, no harm done, and I don't feel particularly defamed nor libelled in any case !

The below explains a poorly written section in my previous post:

The question for me is "why" do Medibank Private as an Insurer need to do this? (in terms of expensive advertising). Other insurers clearly have not (done this), and they do not (feel the need) to go out and spend large amounts of money on recent advertising, which (lead to) the link that I found?

P.S Don't forget - most other advertisers, are not subsidised by the government.

Nathan et al,

People advertise because they want people to buy their product. The Pink dollar has the same currency as the red blooded heterosexual dollar.