Mike's Minute: We seem to be getting sicker and sicker

There are more people than ever with private medical insurance.  In a so-called “cost of living crisis”, over 15,000 more people joined Southern Cross last year – and that’s just one company. They now have almost a million customers.  Having delt with my company recently over a series of issues, I can inform you I pay over $4000 a year and I have never made a claim in my life.  So far, they are winning.  But I know a person who had an operation the other day that had a value attached of $40 thousand. It wasn’t a major operation, the surgeon did seven of them that day.   Seven operations at $40 thousand, that’s a lot of business for one surgeon in one day, in one clinic. Which would explain why Southern Cross was paying out $6 million a day last year.   Think about it – $6 million for every business day last year  My obvious question is what's wrong with us? Half of members made a claim last year – there were over 3 million actual claims. How is that possible?  As a result of all these claims Southern Cross ran a deficit. They also had to deal with increased cost of claims.   That’s 50%. That 50% by the way, compares to 33% in 2019. So, in the past handful of years there has been an explosion in medical claims. Why?  Knees up 17%, colonoscopy up 17%, hips up 11% - is that age? Are we all just literally falling apart?  The simple reality is this can't continue. Well it can, but at a price, and is it any surprise the price is going up?  Part of the reason the insurance numbers getting up I have no doubt is because the public system is under pressure.  So a public system not working well on anything outside emergency, and the private system under pressure from ever growing numbers of claims, is it possible we are not well as a country?   How come so many people are actively engaged with the health system? Are we worse than Australia, for example, and if so, why?  How long can a private model go for whereby the prices go up and up, along with the claims? We seemingly getting sicker and sicker – why?   Is this not the cold hard truth that when they say health is a bottomless pit, it’s true? Because these numbers show it is. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.