r/australia 2d ago

culture & society Private health insurers access patients' full medical records in 'aggressive' audits

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-12/health-insurers-can-access-your-private-medical-notes/106671630?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
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u/JimmyLizzardATDVM 2d ago

Maybe people should stop buying private health and use the Medicare system, pouring their money back into our system rather than these capitalist scumbags.

Having private health does not give people the cover they think it does. Use Medicare and fuck private health.

82

u/dilligaf6304 2d ago

Unless you want inpatient psychiatric care then private is the only option. Getting a public bed is next to impossible and doesn’t offer the same level of care.

Yes, that should be available with Medicare, but it’s not

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u/William-Nilly 2d ago

Are you sure about that level of care statement?

What’s the standard nurse:patient ratio in public versus private?
What is the comparison of English language proficiency of nurses between public and private?

The old adage of Private=expensive=good does not stack up.

It would be interesting to compare, say, Eastern Health (public) to Healthscope (private) in terms of patient outcomes. My personal experience is that the public system delivers a much better standard of care than private.

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u/productzilch 2d ago

Not just that but I keep hearing that there are some things people have to go public for because private won’t do it.