Patient election in Australian hospitals: How do private and medicare admissions differ?

Recently, the Premier of Queensland has proposed placing restrictions upon privately insured patients electing to be treated as Medicare patients in public hospitals as is currently permitted under the Australian Health Care Agreements. The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in four kinds of patient admissions in Australian hospitals. Results drawn from the 2001 Australian Bureau Statistics (ABS) National Health Survey show that almost 11 percent of all hospital admissions in 2001 were by privately insured patients admitting themselves as Medicare (public) patients. A further 37 per cent were by privately insured patients in either private or public hospitals. Of the remaining 48 per cent of hospital admissions, approximately six per cent were by uninsured persons who are admitted as private patients in either private or public hospitals. The final 42 percent of admissions were uninsured Medicare patients in the public hospital sector. These four groups of patients are found to differ considerably by their socio-economic characteristics, use of hospitals and also by reported reasons for purchasing or not purchasing private health insurance.