Means-testing the subsidies for Insulin pumps & contradictions.

So our Federal budget awarded $5.5million towards subsidising insulin pumps for Under-18 year-olds. However, the Federal government also announced in a broad policy that Private Health insurance is no logner compulsory. Will people with diabetes fall into a very large hole?

But how is this money to be distributed? The subsidy, awarded up to $2′500, does not do much to help struggling families who are competing with the costs of diabetes.

An insulin pump in Australia will cost somewhere around $9′000. If you qualify for the full subsidy, that cost drops to $6′500 – which is still probably unreachable for many working families. The subsidy and means-test structure signals that only a potential of 700 families can benefit from the funding program.

However, a large hole may be showing here. If the Government subsidises $2′500 for a pump, will Private Health insurance cover the rest? Plus, are working families who need the subsidy the most, likely to have Private health insurance to cover the rest? Most likely not. Even further, with the new regulations allowing people to ‘opt-out’ of private health insurance, these working families will probably not have the insurance to cover them if they did have previously.

So the contradictions remain: working families will still no longer be able to pay for a pump, subsidised or not. This is put at further disadvantage by allowing people to opt-out of private cover, rendering the leftover payment after the $2′500 subsidy unpayable, preventing access altogether.

~ by changingdiabetes on 16 June, 2008.