fortnum

Hi,

Do all employers in Australia provide health insurance as part of employee benefit package? Or do employees buy their own private health insurance? And what happens after you retire? Do you still have to pay premiums for private health insurance, or rely on medicare? Thank you.

Pollyana

Depends on the employer. some do some don't. Some people never bother and always rely on Medicare.

quoll

None of my employers have ever offered private health care - it isnt something which is widely expected and I dont know anyone who has been offered it as part of their package. You are expected to fork out for it out of your own pocket in most cases. I am assuming you are talking about private health insurance here - medicare comes out of everyone's pay packet every month as a matter of course along with their tax.

Bermudashorts

I get the impression it isn't commonly offered, I work gor a big company with a reputation for being generous with remuneration and benefits, but they dont give private health insurance.

Dorothy

You're coming from the US where health care services are run very differently to Australia. Our Medicare system is nothing like the US system - it's more like the Canadian system where (in a nutshell) essential care is paid for under the Medicare system and extras like dental and optical are paid for with private insurance. Private insurance is great for if you want to choose your own doctor and private hospital if you need to go to hospital and if you want to speed up treatment. Sometimes the wait list for things on Medicare can be quite long. (Bear in mind though that for some things a public hospital is a better option)

Anyway, most employers don't provide private cover like they do in North America. It's not that expensive - we pay about $250/mo for our family plan which includes top extras and mid hospital cover. Once you retire you can either continue your private cover or rely on Medicare. We intend to continue with private, but change what our cover will be. ATM we don't have some surgical specialties covered (ophthalmology, cardiac) but know we will want those when we're older. Things like hip/knee replacements on Medicare can have wait lists as long as 1+ years and cataracts the same. That's where private comes in handy in your old age.

Tr1boy

I've only ever worked for blue chip US multis (and one Asian owned Oz company) and have always had it offered in Sydney. At my level it's a given with any company (I get it in the UK as well working for a European company), plenty of large companies do offer it at all levels, but sometimes it's a co-pay.

A lot depends on what you do and who you do it for. Seems to be much more common in Syd/Melb though.

chris955

For the average worker there are no extra benefits and if you choose to you buy health insurance yourself. This probably applies to about 80% of the workforce.

KJCherokee

Bear in mind that if your taxable income is above $77,000 for a single person or $154,000 for a couple with no or one child you will have to pay the Mediacre levy at 2.5% instead of 1.5% if you don't have private hospital cover, so the effective cost of your private health insurance is the difference between the actual cost and 1% of your income.

mark213

Some large one will have an affiliation with an insurer and get you a corporate discount off the retail plan etc, but the individual is responsible for signing up and paying the premiums. But rarely will they provide it to you directly.