{"id":680711,"date":"2026-05-19T11:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/680711\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T11:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:45:12","slug":"plan-to-reduce-private-health-rebates-for-older-australians-to-have-almost-no-impact-on-hospital-system-expert-says-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/680711\/","title":{"rendered":"Plan to reduce private health rebates for older Australians to have \u2018almost no impact\u2019 on hospital system, expert says | Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

A leading health economist says the removal of higher private health insurance rebates for those aged 65 and over will have \u201calmost no impact\u201d on the public health system, despite backlash from insurers and advocacy groups.<\/p>\n

Before last week\u2019s budget<\/a>, the federal government announced older Australians would see a reduction in their private health insurance rebates, bringing them into line with those aged under 65.<\/p>\n

Labor anticipated the move could increase private health insurance costs for the cohort by up to $250 a year and see 44,000 abandon their cover \u2013 of about three million people that the industry estimates the policy change will impact.<\/p>\n

But Dr Stephen Duckett, a health economist and honorary professor at the University of Melbourne, said the policy was a \u201cwise move\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019ll be almost no impact on the public health system,\u201d Duckett said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the government\u2019s projections of the number of people who might drop health insurance is quite small.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the estimated 44,000 people who could ditch their insurance were spread across eight states and territories, meaning \u201cyou won\u2019t be able to discern [that] in the overall statistics\u201d.<\/p>\n

Duckett said previous modelling on the number of older people who took up private health insurance due to the rebate \u2013 introduced by the Howard government in 2004 \u2013 found the impact of the policy was very low.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had more or less no impact when it was introduced, so it\u2019s going to have almost no impact when it\u2019s taken away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

The health minister, Mark Butler, had announced the move \u2013 alongside drastic changes to the national disability insurance scheme<\/a> \u2013 at the National Press Club on 22 April. He had said the policy would recoup $3m over four years, which would be spent on increasing the number of beds in aged care homes.<\/p>\n

Justifying the changes, Butler said the current policy was \u201cnot fair between generations\u201d and that two households on the same income should not receive different rebates based on age.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Butler told the ABC the government would push ahead with the changes, despite the backlash and community concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recognise this is an unwelcome change for many older Australians,\u201d Butler said. \u201cBut at a time where we need to find every dollar we can to plough into aged care services, continuing to pay people a higher subsidy for their private health insurance not on difference in income, but difference in age, was just difficult to sustain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Council on the Ageing (Cota) said it had serious concerns over the additional pressure the changes would place on older Australians already absorbing the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n

Cota\u2019s chief executive, Patricia Sparrow, said the peak body had heard from older Australians worried about the policy\u2019s impacts.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some people, the added cost may be manageable, but for many others living on fixed or modest incomes, every extra dollar matters,\u201d Sparrow said.<\/p>\n

Dr Rachel David, the chief executive of insurance industry body Private Healthcare Australia, warned that the changes would have wider consequences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are concerned many older Australians will move to cheaper policies with significant exclusions or restrictions and only discover they are not covered when they need treatment,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis creates a flow-on effect for public hospitals because patients who lose or downgrade cover do not disappear from the health system \u2013 they end up relying more heavily on publicly funded care.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Duckett said that it was far more cost effective for the government to use the money saved from reducing the rebates and put it into increasing aged care beds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a person is stuck in a public hospital bed, they\u2019re often there for 100 days or so, which is about 20 patients being admitted to the hospital at an average length of five days, so it\u2019s a really important initiative in getting the public hospital system to work better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A leading health economist says the removal of higher private health insurance rebates for those aged 65 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-680711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}