THE NSW Government has launched a campaign urging overseas visitors to take out health insurance to help combat the $30m of annual unpaid hospital bills.
The push is targeting overseas visitors and their families who travel here without health insurance coverage and follows a suggestion by the Government that health insurance become mandatory across visa classes.
Each year about 16,000 Medicare-ineligible inpatients require hospitalisation in NSW and of the $100m invoiced, about $70m is paid.
“While we recognise that overseas visitors are important to the NSW economy, health insurance is a very minor part of travel expenses and it is not at all unusual for countries to mandate health insurance for overseas visitors,” said NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard.
“I am also asking the Federal Government, through the Minister for Immigration, to assist in getting the message out loud and clear through immigration channels that travellers coming to this state should have adequate health insurance,” he added.
Last Oct, NSW raised at the COAG Health Ministers meeting that health insurance become mandatory across all visa classes and an advisory council is currently looking at options.
“No person needing urgent medical treatment will be turned away from a NSW public hospital, but this proposal will ensure taxpayers don’t wear the costs incurred by Medicare-ineligible patients not covered under a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement,” Hazzard said.
Source: traveldaily