Record Number of Australians Now Covered by Private Hospital Insurance

The latest data released by the Private Health Insurance Administration Council (PHIAC), shows private hospital cover has reached a new high, with almost 10.8 million Australians covered.

This record number of Australians covered by private health insurance has been reached since reporting began 42 years ago.
The new record followed 52,863 more people taking out hospital cover since the December 2012 quarter.
Minister for Health Tanya Plibersek said the March 2013 quarter figures reveal that almost 1.4 million additional people have taken out hospital cover since the Government took office.
“These strong trends counter predictions that almost a million people would drop their private health insurance because of an increase in the Medicare levy surcharge in 2008,” Ms Plibersek said.  “Instead, there was an increase of almost 1.2 million people with hospital cover since September 2008.
“Industry ‘experts’ also predicted that introduction of income testing of the private health insurance rebate would cause 1.6 million people to drop their cover.  “In fact, in the three quarters that followed introduction of income testing, an additional 175,354 people took out private hospital cover,” she said.
In the year to 31 March 2013, the number of people covered for private hospital treatment had increased 2.9 per cent (307,720 extra people) – exceeding population growth of 1.7 per cent for the year.”