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Speaker 1: Now there are. I'm here to tell you more people

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Speaker 1: than ever with private medical insurance. Let me give you

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Speaker 1: some numbers, and the so called costs will be in crisis.

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Speaker 1: Over fifteen thousand more people joined Southern Cross last year.

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Speaker 1: That's just one company. They've got almost a million customers now.

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Speaker 1: So having dealt with my company, which isn't Southern Cross

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Speaker 1: recently over a series of issues, I can inform you

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Speaker 1: I pay over four thousand dollars a year and I've

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Speaker 1: never made a claim in my life. So so far

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Speaker 1: they're winning. But I know a person who had an

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Speaker 1: OP the other day that had a value attached to it.

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Speaker 1: A forty thousand dollars. Wasn't a big op, wasn't a

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Speaker 1: major op. Forty thousand dollars. The surgeon did seven of

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Speaker 1: them that day, seven times forty thousand dollars operators. Seven

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Speaker 1: ops had forty thousand dollars. That's a lot of business

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Speaker 1: for just one surgeon, one day, one clinic, which would

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Speaker 1: explain why Southern Cross are paying out six million dollars

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Speaker 1: a day last year. Think about that, six million dollars

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Speaker 1: for every business day last year. So my obvious question

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Speaker 1: is what's wrong with us? I mean half of members

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Speaker 1: made a claim. Last year there were over three million

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Speaker 1: actual claims. How is that possible? As a result of

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Speaker 1: all these claims, Southern Cross ran a deficit, no kidding.

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Speaker 1: They also had to deal with increased costs of claims.

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Speaker 1: That's fifty percent, the thirty percent of them. By the way,

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Speaker 1: that's gone up from thirty three percent. Used to be

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Speaker 1: a third of people making a claim. Now it's fifty percent.

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Speaker 1: That was in twenty nineteen. So in the past handful

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Speaker 1: of years there's been an explosion in medical claims. Why

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Speaker 1: Knees are up seventeen percent, colonoscopes are up seventeen percent,

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Speaker 1: hips are up eleven percent. I mean is that age?

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Speaker 1: Are we all that now? Just literally falling apart? The

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Speaker 1: simple reality is this can't continue. Well, I mean it can,

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Speaker 1: but at a price. And is it any surprise your

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Speaker 1: price is going up. Part of the reason the numbers

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Speaker 1: are getting in it's going up in terms of insurance,

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Speaker 1: I've got no doubt, is because the public system is

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Speaker 1: under pressure. Who would want to deal with the public

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Speaker 1: system if you've got the will with all not to

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Speaker 1: so a public system not working well on anything outside

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Speaker 1: of emergencies, and the private system under pressure from ever

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Speaker 1: growing numbers of claims. Is it possible we are not

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Speaker 1: well as a country? How come so many people are

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Speaker 1: actively engaged with the health system. Are we worse than

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Speaker 1: in Australia for example? And if so, why how long

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Speaker 1: can a private model go for whereby the prices just

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Speaker 1: go up and up and up and up. Along with

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Speaker 1: the claims, we seemingly are getting sicker and sicker. Why

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Speaker 1: is this not the cold hard truth that when they

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Speaker 1: say health is a bottomless pit, it is in fact true,

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Speaker 1: because these numbers show it is. For more from the

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Speaker 1: Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks it'd be

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