Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Feel free to join the debate in a moment, Senator Corman. I appreciate that you want to respond, and I would actually be interested in hearing you try to explain why a person that has chosen not to have private health insurance would then go and use a private hospital. I would be interested in the economics of that, and perhaps you can enlighten me on it.

On the subject of the 583,000 that drop out, many of these people do not use hospitals anyway. These are policies that Access Economics, who were commissioned by the AMA, have defined as ‘Clayton’s policies’. By definition, therefore, they are not people who are rushing into private hospitals at the moment. They are people who have taken out a policy simply in order to not pay the surcharge. That is why they are there. It is acknowledged by the AMA through the Access Economics report. They are referred to as ‘Clayton’s policies’. To try and suggest that these people are suddenly going to jump into the public health system is to completely misunderstand what has actually happened in the marketplace. It is about behavioural economics here. I would be interested in your perspective on this, Senator Cormann—quite genuinely. I have almost finished. On these areas Senator Xenophon shows genuine concern, and I appreciate that. I do not accept that you have got a genuine concern about this at all, Senator Cormann, because if you did you would not be trying to pretend that high income earners earn $50,000. You would actually be supporting a sensible change. You are not even prepared to do that. I am interested in how you respond, Senator Cormann, but I am particularly interested in the response of Senator Xenophon.