Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I encourage everyone who is now becoming aware of this consultation to have their say. It is so important when we consider last year 500,000 Australians dumped or downgraded their private health insurance and the numbers who have health insurance is flat lining. People are disappointed with the product, they are wanting us to do better and we can. I want to make this point: who benefits from private health insurance? The answer is that every single Australian benefits because a strong private health insurance sector supports a strong public health insurance sector so it is important for every single Australian that we have our say and we take interest.

In response to more silly scare campaigns from Labor, I want to make two points: we are not moving to an American-style managed care system and we are not moving to a UK style risk-based private health insurance system. We are doing neither of those things. What I am interested in, on behalf of the people of Australia, is a private health insurance product that looks after them, that meets their needs and, overall, provides very good care in hospital, not some of the junk products that we are seeing, not some of the lack of transparency where consumers are saying, 'I do not understand what I have signed up for and I'm disappointed that is not meeting my needs.' We invite everyone, Labor especially, to join us in this very important consultation built like everything we do in the health system around the consumer, the patient and the carer.

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