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[Rick Welykochy]

Karl Auer wrote:

> Not at all. If you don't want the rebate, you can pay the service
> provider the full amount, directly. I did this several times when I
> needed medical services in Australia while I was a non-resident. If you
> cover the whole bill yourself, you don't need a card.

There is a sad and costly irony associated with the private health care
insurance "top up" high income earners have to suffer. I was hospitalised
with adult onset whooping cough (!) in 2004, in a public ward in the RPA.
The fellow in the bed across from me, who was in and out of the hospital
constantly with a rare chronic disease told me the following.

If you have private insurance, DO NOT declare that fact to the hospital
staff upon admission. That way, all costs are paid directly by medicare
and you pay nothing. If you do declare private coverage, the hospital will
bill you at top rates. You then have to cover these costs yourself and
then seek a rebate from the private insurer, often at partial amount of
recompense, i.e. you are out of pocket with private health care!

The upside of the whooping cough incident: I was transfered to a private
room which I enjoyed for the duration of my "incarceration" since the
staff at the time did not know what disease I had and could not risk
me infecting an entire public ward.


cheers,
rickw



-- 
_________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services

Can omniscient God, who
Knows the future, find
The omnipotence to
Change His future mind?
      -- Karen Owens