Health Insurance - Government Sanctions Rip-Off

I am a snob when it comes to health care! I want to pick my doctor and if I need to be in hospital, it's a given that I already feel like shit, so sharing a room with half a dozen other sickos, would hold no joy for me. I want my own fucking room! My own loo with my own skid marks and my own shower with my own pubes! My own pillow to sob into without fear of pissing off the neighbours, my own little bit of silence as and when I want it.

Consequently I have ALWAYS had private health insurance. I have paid for this since I was 19. As a newly wed I was happy to forego stuff like food just to make sure that my health was covered, and as my unreliable body has far too frequently failed me, I am very pleased to say that I have made good use of the insurance.

But it's March and it's time to stump up the cash again. Now I am very lucky that Steve forks out for this now cos it is hellishly expensive, even though it is a gamble I have long won.

Up until I went to live the high life in London, various Governments had been grateful for those with private insurance cos they were not a strain on the public system. The Oz government was definitely ahead in my case as I claimed for everything from Childbirth to cancer through my private fund.

BUT in a move that I just cannot fathom for a conservative government in 2000, Howard's conies introduced penalty rates for folk without insurance after the age of 31. This wasn't me, or so I thought.

I gallivanted around for 7 years and paid no premiums of course, as I was out of the country and was unable to make any use of it, but imagine my surprise when I got back with a Pom in tow and we went to buy some insurance and even though he's older and has never had any insurance, my premiums are dearer. Yeh I have some fucking penalty rate cos I dared to go away and not pay for that which I could not use!

I was 7 years out of the system and the government as a gesture of generosity decided that I could go for about 3 and a half years, but after that they were gonna slap me. And so I have a penalty rate of 4% for the 3 and a half years of extra cavorting.

But it is possible to whittle away at the penalty percentage, but that takes 10 YEARS. So for 10 fucking years I will pay the penalty rate for daring to be away and not paying for insurance, I couldn't use, even though I had continuously been covered for more than 20 YEARS.!

I just can't see the economic advantage to the government in making private insurance so expensive that people are driven sobbing in to the public system.

I am sure this is a simplistic view and it is certainly anecdotal in the extreme, but every March it gives me the screaming irrits to see that my premium is more expensive than the older immigrant, who has paid no tax and has contributed nothing to the Australian way - no offense Steve.

Roll on April when the bill is paid and I can forget about it again til next year!