In a so-called “cost of living crisis”, over 15,000 more people joined Southern Cross last year – and that’s just one company. They now have almost a million customers.
Having delt with my company recently over a series of issues, I can inform you I pay over $4000 a year and I have never made a claim in my life.
So far, they are winning.
But I know a person who had an operation the other day that had a value attached of $40 thousand. It wasn’t a major operation, the surgeon did seven of them that day.
Seven operations at $40 thousand, that’s a lot of business for one surgeon in one day, in one clinic. Which would explain why Southern Cross was paying out $6 million a day last year.
Think about it – $6 million for every business day last year
My obvious question is what's wrong with us? Half of members made a claim last year – there were over 3 million actual claims. How is that possible?
As a result of all these claims Southern Cross ran a deficit. They also had to deal with increased cost of claims.
That’s 50%. That 50% by the way, compares to 33% in 2019. So, in the past handful of years there has been an explosion in medical claims. Why?
Knees up 17%, colonoscopy up 17%, hips up 11% - is that age? Are we all just literally falling apart?
The simple reality is this can't continue. Well it can, but at a price, and is it any surprise the price is going up?
Part of the reason the insurance numbers getting up I have no doubt is because the public system is under pressure.
So a public system not working well on anything outside emergency, and the private system under pressure from ever growing numbers of claims, is it possible we are not well as a country?
How come so many people are actively engaged with the health system? Are we worse than Australia, for example, and if so, why?
How long can a private model go for whereby the prices go up and up, along with the claims? We seemingly getting sicker and sicker – why?
Is this not the cold hard truth that when they say health is a bottomless pit, it’s true? Because these numbers show it is.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
Seven operations at $40 thousand, that’s a lot of business for one surgeon in one day, in one clinic. Which would explain why Southern Cross was paying out $6 million a day last year.
Think about it – $6 million for every business day last year
My obvious question is what's wrong with us? Half of members made a claim last year – there were over 3 million actual claims. How is that possible?
As a result of all these claims Southern Cross ran a deficit. They also had to deal with increased cost of claims.
That’s 50%. That 50% by the way, compares to 33% in 2019. So, in the past handful of years there has been an explosion in medical claims. Why?
Knees up 17%, colonoscopy up 17%, hips up 11% - is that age? Are we all just literally falling apart?
The simple reality is this can't continue. Well it can, but at a price, and is it any surprise the price is going up?
Part of the reason the insurance numbers getting up I have no doubt is because the public system is under pressure.
So a public system not working well on anything outside emergency, and the private system under pressure from ever growing numbers of claims, is it possible we are not well as a country?
How come so many people are actively engaged with the health system? Are we worse than Australia, for example, and if so, why?
How long can a private model go for whereby the prices go up and up, along with the claims? We seemingly getting sicker and sicker – why?
Is this not the cold hard truth that when they say health is a bottomless pit, it’s true? Because these numbers show it is.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
Gee I wonder
Perhaps a higher % of NZ population persisted with experimental jabs for longer?
How much longer are we going to pretend they were “safe & effective” when it’s plainly clear they were neither?!???
As Big Pharma say, it imore profitable to have a lot of sick folk using drugs than to cure them......
Amazing the difference between pre-2020 and now. Wonder what happened in the last 5 years? Ah, must be age!
“That’s 50%. That 50% by the way, compares to 33% in 2019. So, in the past handful of years there has been an explosion in medical claims. Why”?
Gee Mike, maybe it’s the “safe and effective” bio-weapon that was rolled out as a vaccine?
Rather than blame the Covid vaccine, the reality is that the public health system is a disaster. Shutting the country down for 2 year has severely damaged the country.
I read the other day that the cost of producing a bag of saline for a drip is just $3-4 but in the US hospitals charge the insurance companies $400-$500 for the it.
How much of that sort of thing goes on in NZ?
More baby-boomers passed there "Best Before" date.
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