Was he saving up for this trip?
Sure seems that way!
What do you mean reciepts that he claims? Don't you just put them on the taxes for that year? And then take the money off your income? Or do you have some sort of weird health system down under?
Our health system is very different to yours.
Our doctors bill for service same as yours, as do all the other medical practitioners.
We have rather high taxes; part of which the government uses to fund Australia wide Medicare system - public healthcare for every Australian. Obama tried to implement something similar in the US but it was too expensive.
Medicare provides a health rebate whenever you use a practitioner that is on the Medicare list. For some doctors, the Medicare amount completely pays for the doctor fees. For others, there is a gap. How much of a gap depends on the doctor you see and how much you are willing to pay. The doctors that charge the Medicare rebate rate are usually very busy; but you can get an appointment with them still....a couple of days later.
Medicare will also cover for basic dental care.
The same with hospitals, to a varying degree. There are private hospitals and public hospitals. For the public hospitals, these all claim under Medicare and there is less of a gap payment for these. For elective type surgery, there is usually a very long waiting list in the public healthcare system, and it can be expensive but not as expensive as in the US.
I'll get to the private hospitals in a moment.
It is...basic medical cover for everyone. But it doesn't cover the 'extras'. For these, there is private health cover. The amount you pay depends on the level of cover you want for these extras. This includes more than basic dental care, spectacles and lenses, physio, chiro, alternative therapies, massage etc. The list is pretty extensive on these 'extras'.
Like every system that started out as equality for everyone, there are now 'quirks'. As the system matured and governments needed to raise revenue, they started to introduce means testing rules. The latest one is the one I'll mention here.
The government has introduced a Medicare levy on higher wage earners. This is collected by way of your payroll tax as an extra couple of % more in tax for the higher wage earners. In order to reduce or eliminate this extra tax, you can buy private health insurance. If you have private health care, the tax that you paid will be returned to you. For all the high income earners, most of them buy private health insurance. It gives them the option to visit the private hospitals and practitioners; thus reduciing the burden on the public system.
DH works for an American company and they pay for our private health insurance. We did have private health care before he joined, so we would have paid for it anyway.
However, because it is a corporate coverage, our private health care is pretty much at the top of what you can buy. It provides us with a very healthy rebate on some of the extras. For example...you know that I have a monthly chiro and massage booked in. The RRP for that is about $120. With the private health care rebate, I pay $11.20 for an hour long massage AND the chiro. I've worked out that I can book in for about 18 - 20 sessions of chiro in the year before the fund cover runs out; which is great because I put ribs and hips out rather regularly so the additional appointments are great.
Some private hospitals will charge you the full rate for services...and that is after the Medicare basic cover is taken out. A lot of the elective surgery isn't covered under Medicare. So the more private health insurance you buy, and the more private hospital care you need, the better off you would be. OBGYN fees for delivering a baby runs into the $3000 - $4000 mark in a private hospital. With private cover, you would be out of pocket for about $900.
In the public hospital, I think your OOP expenses are around $600 or a bit more.
Because of the level of health insurance we have, we indulge in the extras. The chiro and massage place I go to are on-line with the fund provider. So, they swipe my card and I pay the difference.
For the dentist, they are not on line. I pay them first, save the receipt and claim back later from the health care provider.
The same with the optometrist and DH's massage/chiro. They haven't yet joined the electronic age.
I hadn't realised this but DH had been sitting on a pile of these receipts. These include optometrist, major dental (DS had an operation to remove some of his baby teeth that wouldn't budge and the adult tooth was growiing crooked behind), and all of DH's massage/chiro for over the last 2 years.
He finally did something about them today.
Again. We had a 3 day heatwave starting New Year's day. It's been raining and passing showers since Tuesday this week. The forecast for the month is passing showers.
