Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026

Ms McKENZIE (Flinders) (17:58): Imagine paying for private health insurance for 40 years, 50 years, even 60 years only for the government to wait until you really need it and then smash your ability to hold on to it. That is exactly what the Albanese Labor government is proposing to do to older Australians with this legislation, the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026.

The people who live in my electorate who have saved and planned to provide for their own healthcare costs in old age have now had the carpet ripped out from under them by this cruel, cold and cynical move by the Prime Minister and his grinning health minister. Over the weekend, I attended the opening of the Dromana Bowls Club season. I had a chat to the 100-odd people who were there on a beautiful southern peninsula spring day, and two topics came up over and over again: the callous cap of $5,000 in allied health care support for our returned service men and women and this snatching of support from those over 65 as they approach their hour of need for the healthcare system.

But this particular move really got their goat, because this one literally makes no sense from a budgetary perspective. These insurance holders aren't rich; they make huge sacrifices to be able to sustain private health care. For decades, my constituents have been encouraged to take responsibility for their own health care, to find the means to pay thousands of dollars each year in private health insurance premiums, and they have done exactly as society asked of them.

I have one of the highest incidences of private health insurance in Australia, with over 33,500 of my constituents holding private health insurance. Insurers also contribute massively to covering the cost of the delivery of health care in my electorate, funding some 41,000 individual hospitalisations for older Australians in the Flinders electorate—the third-highest usage rate in the nation.

In maintaining private health insurance, so many of my older constituents have relieved pressure on Medicare and our public hospitals. And it is just as well that they do that, because, over its 12 years in power, the Labor government in Victoria has refused to fund an upgrade of the Rosebud Hospital in my electorate. Today, it remains a hospital which is high on human care but low on fit-for-purpose infrastructure, with roofs collapsing, doors too narrow for a standard hospital bed to be pushed through, no surgery and no maternity services.

When my constituents give up their private health care, as so many of them are now facing the prospect of doing, our public healthcare system will be swamped. My community of Flinders is older than most; 27.8 per cent of residents in Flinders are aged 65 or over—almost double the national average—so the measure to crush private health insurance rates among the over-65 cohort will hit my community harder than almost anywhere else in the country.

A few months ago, I asked my community what this change would mean for them, and more than 1,200 people responded. Tonight, I want to use their words because they say it better than any politician could here. Rowan, from Mount Martha, wrote: My wife & I married in 1979 and have paid private health continuously without any claims.

I now have serious cancer, and quite frankly cannot risk being without it. I have had major surgery, in Feb 2022 9 and half hours, then radiation, and other ongoing treatments . Since then I have had 6 further surgeries.

I consider we paid private health for many years & now is when we need it. Labour in the last budget hitting us with this extra cost, is a real kick in the teeth We also ran a local business for many years employing people and paying our taxes considering we would be looked after in our later life. I worked from the age of 18 till 68 when the cancer struck me down.

I consider I cant afford to cancel it.. because I cannot go into the public system .. it would to much of a risk for me & to my life My wife also has some health issues Thank you for listening This is what this policy looks like in the real world. In respect of the likely increased premiums, Gwendoline from Rosebud said: Yes I could not afford it. I have just changed my long time health insurance to a cheaper one, which is still hard financially for me.

I have to be insured as I have had 5 major opps in past 15 months and need another three.—does Labor want us to die!!! With other insurances; electricity (even with solar), house, car insurance and rates going up each year—I now live off $100.00 per week even though I own my own modest 1970 ish house. And I do not have much super left as I have spent over 30 thousand $ over the past 3 years on my health, of out of pocket expenses.

Thank you for asking. Let me repeat what she just said. She's living on $100 a week after spending more than $30,000 on her health over three years.

Virginia from Rye wrote: We have had private health insurance for over 60 years, and now we are at that stage in life where having choices and immediate health support is so important and necessary. Over the years, we have made sacrifices just to stay in private cover and even have just recently changed from our long time provider to one that was more flexible.

Virginia added: Now we are seriously going to have to consider our options if it means the government implements these changes, and that really hits home. As usual, it is those with the most to lose who are going to suffer. My husband is due in hospital next Friday for a surgery that will involve an overnight stay.

If we hadn't had private insurance, he would be on a waiting list and in a lot of discomfort for goodness knows how long. Stephanie from Mornington said: I have had private health insurance since I started work in the 1960's. Like so many of my generation, in the last 10 years I have experienced my first cancer.

I fractured my spine in the 1990's and although recovered, this has ongoing associated problems requiring physiotherapy. Both medical conditions require constant imaging and monitoring. I will no longer be able to afford the high level of cover on hospital and extra's I need.

This is an appalling decision literally discriminating against older Australians who have paid their way. My insurers are financially well in positive territory given I have lived a relatively able bodied, healthy life. Please do your utmost to have this budget proposal defeated.

There is a phrase in there that the government needs to hear: 'older Australians who have paid their way'. This is who the policy hits. Susan from Portsea wrote: I will have to forgo other things that I have a right to expect after a lifetime of work, (I am 79 and still work a little), paying taxes and private health insurance.

I have fortunately always had good health insurance, claiming only during pregnancy and a knee reconstruction. However, I am now seeing a cardiologist, And needing much more health maintenance.. I consider my health a priority, so will pay for that over holidays or home help.

I feel as though my lifetime investment is being stolen from me. Thank you for your care Zoe. This response is especially important because Susan answered that she might be able to afford the increase, but affording that means giving up on holidays, giving up on home help.

It means sacrificing the very things a 79-year-old who has worked all her life should be able to enjoy after a lifetime of contribution. So when this government says older Australians can absorb this cost, I ask: at what cost? Monique from Mornington wrote: I have held private health insurance for 47 yrs since my first job.

Thought about cancelling at one stage of my life & then the government introduced the age-based supplement if you were entering or re- joining private health insurance & decided this would cost me excessive $$$ for many years. So I have continued to keep this private insurance to the cost of other things I cannot do.. I've only ever made I major claim in my entire life so far.

I am a healthy, fit 69 yr old now & this is when I will possibly need it. So here I sit terrified I will not be able to sustain this insurance & become a statistic waiting on hospital lists for years to have a procedure I need but will not necessarily be deemed life threatening. My insurance keeps me out of the public system & allows more needy people to gain more to access public health.

As a part pensioner now this is not viable for me to incur. I hope we can see a turn around on this decision. My retirement years do not look so great now on top of general cost of living increases, as well as not earning an income any longer & that's so tragic for us.

Roy from Bittern put it even more simply: We can't afford not to have private health at our age as we are both going through treatment. We have had private health cover for 50 years and at 79 and 81 years old we need it more than ever. They cannot afford the increase but they cannot afford not to be insured.

Angela from Capel Sound wrote: I feel that older Australians are being squeezed into poverty. Increased health insurance, more tax on capital gains. Increased cost of living.

I have no superannuation so I am trying my best to preserve any funds that I have or try to get some capital gain to live on. I am a part pension so have to dip into my funds every month. Even if you are on a full pension it doesn't pay the bills.

I have worked hard and feel totally depressed by what the government is doing to the older Australians who are invisible and a 'burden on taxes' Increased health insurance squeezes us into an overcrowded and underfunded public hospital system. This also leads to elderly people clogging up hospital beds and unable to afford aged care And another respondent from Mornington wrote: Why are we being penalised when we aren't posing a burden on the public health system, which is already struggling.

Whatever money is saved by this will have to be found to cover the extra people switching to public and we don't have many hospitals on the Mornington Peninsula as it is! My constituent Barry commented on Facebook from his hospital bed: Keep up the pressure Zoe! I'm typing this from Beleura Private Hospital, where I've just had a knee replacement, using my private health fund.

I shudder to think of the waiting list under public system if I didn't have the choice. Seems to me a classic 'Rob Peter to Pay Paul' situation, if those of us on private have to switch, all at once to the already overburdened public system! James, on Facebook, wrote: For over 50 years I have had private health, mainly funded from my savings in my senior years.

I haven't used the public health system in all that time, but will now need to use it after I cancel my private health insurance, due to the $1600 annual increase, plus the usual annual increase in April. After a lifetime of doing the right thing, older Australians should not receive a bill from Canberra for the privilege. The government needs to scrap this cut.

It needs to keep the over 65-year-old cohort in private health insurance. Respect their hard work. Respect their sacrifice and their deferral of other costs, other choices and other opportunities to maintain their health insurance and lessen their dependence on the public system at a time when their health needs start to grow.

Respect older Australians. Respect my electorate.