30 November

We got rid of our private health insurance a few years ago now, except for extras. The whole system is corrupt and just shovels wheelbarrows of money from the taxpayer into private hospitals and specialists' pockets. Here's the basic sums as I see them. Say you pay $1000 a year for health insurance for your family. If you don't, the government penalises you if you take it up again later, 2% for every year you're over 31. (How's that for 'private', the government even running the penalty system for these insurance companies). Say you take it up again at age 65, having dumped it at age 30. That's 35 years of penalty, which maxes out at 70% extra premiums under the penalty system. So $1700 per year. But if you do that, you're still way ahead. You've saved paying $35,000 to the insurance company in the intervening 35 years. And the penalty only applies for 10 years to boot.