camel80

Hello,

I know this has been covered in a few threads but no one has said anything about family members, particularly defacto partners.

I’m over in Perth at the moment with my girlfriend on a 457 visa. In my company contract there is no mention of private healthcare. However, for a company to sponsor an employee on a 457 the company is liable for coving all healthcare costs as stated by the DIMMI:

The department must be satisfied that the employer is able to meet these sponsorship obligations for both the employee and their accompanying family members.
• pay all medical or hospital expenses for an employee (and accompanying family member) for treatment in a public hospital (other than expenses that are met by health insurance or reciprocal health care arrangements)
o this undertaking continues until all expenses are paid

My questions are:

1. Should I ask my employer for private healthcare insurance for me and my girlfriend?
2. If we do end up paying for health fees we should be able to get my company to pay them according to the obligations of the 457?
3. Its states “and accompanying family member”…..does this include my girlfriend?

To make this more complicated our combined salary is over $100,000 so we need to pay the 1% surcharge on medicare for not having insurance for hospital treatment. So, is it cheaper to get basic private insurance to overcome the additional medicare levy and are my girlfriend and I able to class ourselves as a couple or do we need separate insurance?

Sorry to ask so many questions but I cant find the simple solution to this.

Thanks in advance.