NIB, HCF, MBF: too many acronyms and still no Medicare

I just signed up for health care. Don’t raise your eyebrows just yet.

Australia follows the British system of universal health care – government subsidised health care. Private health care exists too, but why go with private when you pay such high taxes? Actually, tax payers only contribute about 1.5% of their income towards Medicare.

*Australia spent 9.1% of GDP on health care

The government pays for a large percentage of the cost of services, mainly for public hospital costs. Yes, there are private hospitals too, but Medicare doesn’t cover these.

Basically, the Government subsidises:

• 75% In-hospital costs
• 100% General Practitioner visits
• 85% Specialist services

This coverage is crossed against whether or not the patient has surpassed the threshold of the service (based on total health expenditure for the year).

Although the government pays a large part of the subsidy, the patient will have to pay the remaining cost out-of-pocket otherwise known as a co payment. Other services typically covered like dental, optometry and ambulance transports are ‘extras’ therefore you have to pay the full amount. This is the reason why Aussies get additional health care insurance – private health care.

Living in Korea for almost 2 years, I didn’t have health care. Don’t tsk tsk me just yet. Korea actually provides great health services for reasonable rates. They don’t even ask you if you have health care insurance! Perhaps I didn’t know with the language barrier. Now that I live in a Western country again, things I took for granted, like health care, has popped loudly back into my mind. Back in the U.S., I was still a university student well-covered under my mom’s private health care provider.

*Being ‘well-covered’ in the U.S. is an entirely new debate. As skewed as it is, watch Michael Moore’s Sicko.

Today, I took off from work an hour early to catch the Medicare office before closing time. Since I am applying for a Long Stay Business Visa, I have to show the Australian Government that I have health care unless I have Medicare. Along with Dave - a Canadian and Ben - my French colleague, we took a number ready to wait our Medicare fate. After waiting a mere 10 minutes, we huddled around a counter quickly told that we cannot get Medicare because we are not:

1. Permanent residents

2. Of a country with a reciprocal health care agreement e.g. United Kingdom or New Zealand

I wasn’t too heartbroken. We had done our research on private health care providers – NIB, HCF, MBF etc. (I don’t know what these acronyms actually stand for). Surprisingly, we found a lot of them don’t even cover overseas persons! We found the cheapest and most inclusive coverage from MBF. With the Couples Classic coverage for about $200 per month we get:

• Hospital and ambulance cover for non pre-existing issues
• Accident cover
• General Practitioner and Specialist visits
• Dental
• Optical
• Some random other coverage that I’m likely not even going to need i.e. hip replacement

Not bad considering other plans were about $200 per month for just the hospital and accident cover. Dental and Optical are actually not part of the basic plan because again they are ‘extras’. We had to pay $5 extra per week for each. Like Medicare, I’ll have to pay for ‘excess’ and I have a set amount per year that I’m allowed to spend on these services. Interestingly enough, I’m getting an MBF card that works like a debit card. I’ll show my card to the doctor, health clinic or pharmacy and when they swipe it, my yearly allowance shrinks based on how much that service costs. Furthermore, there are waiting periods to use these services. Dental and optical is a 2 month wait and surgeries taking 12 months till it is covered.

Living in a country where health care is universal, you’d think I’d have the privilege of dipping into this golden well especially since I pay 29% tax as a foreigner. But no, I don’t get to enjoy the spoils of paying high tax and living in a semi-socialised society. Furthermore, if I did have permanent residency status, Medicare kicks in and my MBF coverage lowers 40%.

Despite this residency and Medicare annoyance, I am happy that I got health coverage today. I just know that if I didn’t have it, something would happen. Heck, something could happen whether or not I have health insurance. Calculating it down, having my private health care costs me about $3 per day. I just foresee that when I've been hit by a car, I'll have to tell the cabbie, "Take me to the nearest public hospital!"