The importance of health insurance

Many of you who are reading this are probably already have health insurance either public like Medicare or private such as Allianz, Prudential and etc. They're all good in covering the costs of the medical expenses that e accumulated during our stay in the hospital or when covering expenses as an outpatient during check-ups. However, it should be noted that there are key differences between the two especially the medical procedures that are covered by the insurance and the parties that are involved in paying these expenses. The descriptions or characteristics of this insurance may vary from country to country depending on where you are.

In Australia, the majority of people are covered by Medicare, which is the public insurance that is sponsored by the Australian government an all expenses are paid with the state's money and it's generally accepted in most hospitals and it usually lasts I accordance with the duration o your stay at the hospital with some renewals that had to be done. However, Medicare insurance is only available for Australian citizens in Australia. Foreigners such as myself who are on a temporary work and study visa don't have the option of getting this kind of insurance, therefore it was advised for me to apply for an overseas student health cover under Allianz insurance when I came to study at the central institute of technology. I did apply for it for about a year before expiring at the end of 2014 when my course ended.

The Overseas student health cover as you all know is from Allianz and is recommended by most educational institutions throughout Australia. The same kind or if not similar insurance is used in other Commonwealth countries. If a foreigner were to come to Australia under a skilled visa to work, it is recommended that the employers provide workers compensation under Work Safe Australia in compliance with the health legislation of the country, however, there are variations on what is covered by both employers and the insurance company. At times the insurance company or the employers are only willing to pay certain things while the rest we have to pay on our own.

Both the private and public insurance have their own advantages in paying the hospital bills and giving the patient the financial support they need to pay their hospital bills. For public insurance, one of the main advantages is that they are much cheaper and easier to acquire especially for the natives and the government will be paying all the medical expenses. The downside, however, is that the services provided under Medicare will most likely not be as outstanding as when using a private one especially when you're hospitalized in a public hospital. The other downside is that the patients will most likely not be given the first priority under this insurance since the government hs to pay for the expenses. The private insurances, however, have a different effect on patients who have them. Those with private insurance get better treatment in public hospitals and usually be given the first priority. This is because a private company will be paying the expenses an not the government, therefore, it'often seen as profitable to keep private insured patients longer so more money can be extracted for profit, however not all hospitals will behave this way.

If you are a student studying in college or university, you have the option of applying for health insurance before starting your course of studies. A lot of times students will take the health insurance for granted as they don't see themselves in any health crisis in the near future. However rarer cases such as AVMs tend to be unpredictable and could happen at any time, thus it would be good to have insurance to be safe should anything happen, unless you happen to be very wealthy and could afford to pay all of your medical bills with your own money.