Health insurance is something

"not negotiable" in this family. I struggle to pay mine but know it is essential to have it. The Senior Cat certainly used it. Middle Cat would not be alive without it. Brother Cat would likely have had a below knee amputation this year if private health insurance had not paid for him to be in hospital and the infection dealt with in a timely manner. 

I am told it is "queue jumping because you can pay for it" and that I should "just save the money and wait (my) turn" if I ever need something done. But is it really that simple?

The Senior Cat used his to his advantage several times during his later years. On at least one of those occasions it saved the taxpayer over a hundred thousand dollars. His health fund paid the bill for the surgery and the subsequent short stay at a rehabilitation facility. The latter was only necessary because we had to make sure the bathroom was fully accessible when he came  home.  Without health insurance he would have been waiting in agony and possibly never have come home but gone into care.

Middle Cat had major back surgery. This was necessary so that her spine did not impact her lungs and her ability to breathe. There were complications. She spent months in hospital. Health insurance paid for all of it. Without it she would not even have been able to have the initial surgery. 

I have had knee surgery. It was not major but it needed to be done. I am also well aware that if I need any extra help or assistance that it will not be something which can wait. I am not being impatient or selfish when I say this. It will be because doing what needs to be done will be designed to keep me as independent as possible for as long as possible. Being independent and living in my own place will actually save the government the expense of having me miserably located in a sub-standard nursing home in some far distant corner of the state. 

The same sort of incidents must be able to be told thousands upon thousands of times over. Anyone who has worked has also paid the "Medicare levy" into the public system. Private health is the extra on top of that. Previous governments have been returning a little of that to people over sixty-five. The present government, looking for any means of "saving" money has decided this is no longer to happen. The result? There are sufficient numbers of older people dropping their health insurance at the age when they will most likely need it. It will not really be saving the government any money of course. In reality it is likely to increase the demand for many services. These are services which might otherwise be avoided by people whose issues had been dealt with in a more timely fashion. 

 I know this has been explained to those responsible for making the decision. I know because I know one of the people who did the explaining. The government is not listening of course. The plan sounds like a good one. It is the "we are making it more equitable" argument being used again.  It is not more equitable. Life does not work like that.