House of Representatives Chamber (part 3 of 3)
25 March 2026
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House of Representatives Australian Parliament
00:00 - 02:11
Speaker 3
Creating this cost finder website, but unfortunately with an opt in system only 50 doctors registered for use of this. This will now be every specialist in the country will be on this list, and it will assist GPs to do referrals. It will assist patients to make assessments and judgments about which specialists they they wanna work with. So I think it's incredibly important, and that's just one thing this legislation does. This legislation also deals with product phoenixing.
The second thing the bill fixes is this practice, the practice of private health insurers protecting their profits by price gouging their most vulnerable clients. Here's how product phoenixing phoenixing works. Right now, when health insurers want to change the premiums of an existing product, they must make an application to the minister of health. Private health insurers are creating new products that are identical or very similar to existing products and dramatically increasing their premiums and bypassing the step to the minister. They can then cancel the original product leaving the new more expensive product as the only option for consumers And it's not seen as an adjustment to an existing one so it doesn't require the minister's approval.
It also means that they get around that obligation. They no longer have to seek approval from the minister. It's a simple practice. It's clever, but it has a devastating effect on those who need the most comprehensive cover. And those people, of course, are most likely to have a multiplicity of health issues, and be dealing in...
With medicines on a large scale. They are often the people who can least afford it. According to Choice, the price of gold hospital cover has increased by approximately 58% in the past five years. Cost of living pressures means that many people have had to give up their gold health insurance. People forced to make sacrifices have dropped down to lower levels of cover.
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