The CEO of Medibank Private, Craig Drummond, has warned that Australia’s private health insurance system faces an “existential crisis” as cost pressures drive healthier, younger members out of the system:
“The hardest problem is solving this inevitable and inexorable increase in cost in the system,” Drummond says. “So how do we bridge that gap between wages and cost growth? That is a serious challenge because that is driving the drop in participation”…
Health insurers warn that without intervention, Australian private hospital cover will drop to as little as 30 per cent of the population within the next decade and send more than one insurer out of business.
