Private Health Insurance and Medical Rebate Means Testing Changes

In line with the current Government’s policies, many rebates are now becoming means tested. Testing times indeed!

So goes the Private Health Insurance Rebate. Originally the government paid 30% of your health insurance cost to try help  keep Australian out of public hospitals. Now, from the 2013 year, the rebate will be means tested so that many higher income earners will not receive any rebate at all.

And like the sands in the hourglass, there goes the Medical Expense Rebate too. For those at higher income levels, no longer will the be able to claim 20% of all medical expenses over $2,000. Now, from the 2013 year they will introduce a high income claim level of 10% of all medical expenses over $5,000.

There you go. The details are yet to be nutted out but the theory is there and will apply. What changes now is that the effective marginal tax rate (that is, the extra tax on every extra dollar of income) is now warped at certain levels of income where benefits phase out. No doubt this makes for a more complicated tax system.