The AMA has detailed its views on private health insurance’s key role in helping to ease the burden on public hospitals at a webinar on private health reform.
AMA President Professor Steve Robson shared insights into private health insurance and its importance in taking the strain off public hospitals at a recent Healthcare Financing webinar.
The group (based at the University of Newcastle) holds the Future of Healthcare Financing webinar series to discuss research to inform reform and policy.
The webinar, the second in a series, was titled, “The financial incentives and private health insurance demand in Australia: Is there new evidence to inform policy change”?
The webinars follow recent Department of Health and Aged Care reports into private health, including risk equalisation, regulatory settings for private health incentives and default benefits.
Professor Robson joined a panel discussion detailing his work across both public and private sectors, sharing his insights into why people take out private health insurance and the importance of the private health system in performing elective surgeries and taking strain off the public system.
The two presentations at the webinar were from:
- Dr Nathan Kettlewell (University of Technology Sydney), presenting on his that uses administrative data to study how high-income earners respond to the simultaneous withdrawal of a premium subsidy, and the increase of a tax penalty.
- Professor Emmanouil Mentzakis (University of Southampton), presenting on his which was experimental survey run to quantify the impact of the MLS and PHI rebate on the demand for PHI. This study was part of the review of the PHI regulatory settings conducted by Finity Australia for the Department of Health and Aged Care.
