this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2025
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For comparison...
In Aus I'm paying ~$32 for 25 pens
We have it decent in Australia, but for the Americans reading on, the bar is so ridiculously low you can walk over it.
I hope one day Medicare can actually be universal, and not the private subsidy model we have currently.
I dunno about you, but finding bulk billing is a pain the arse now, and in certain areas it simply doesn't exist. Not to mention my premium mouth bones which aren't covered for some stupid reason.
I just wish we'd finally kill off private health. Private health is such a scam we only take out because we have a two tiered system and there's a tax discount.
I really don't like Australians talking about how good we have it, when it's kinda meh, and actively getting worse.
That all being said, yeah, the PBS is pretty good and I'm glad insulin is affordable.
Thank Christ we didn't get the Libs back (for American readers, that's the conservative party), we could do SO much better given how wealthy we are per person.
But, anyone who doesn't want to pay more in tax in order to get truly public healthcare doesn't know how to do maths. We could just pay what we pay in private health premiums already, in tax, and we'd probably get way better care per person (because profit is inherently inefficient).
Abolish private health.
Thanks for being accosted with my rant.
100% agree. Dental should be covered.
I don't mind private health existing but it should only exist without all the bs policy to force you into it and without leeching off public funding through tax breaks and Medicare funding.
Bulk billing fortunately doesn't impact me because I see a team at hospital outpatients for almost everything.
Fortunately PBS brings one of my speciality meds down to affordability from a few hundo K per year.
My big gripe at the moment is ndss funding for CGM sensors is non-existent if you aren't type 1. So it's ~100 per fortnight if you want good glucose monitoring but have some non type 1 need for them.
I stopped going to the dentist, it is simply way beyond what my budget can handle. That sucks.
After almost 20 years of big L Liberals in Aus, we should just consider ourselves lucky we still have Medicare. I want dental too, but I also want them to repair the basic model first
the bar is at the bottom of the marianas trench.
US user here: I REALLY appreciate the context. I hear surprisingly little about the Australian side of this kind of thing. Thank you!
No need for that. I feel informed by this. Thank you.
I also hate private health, and in fact, cop the additional medicare levy on the chin because id rather pay 2-5k in tax that funds medicare, than get some junk private health cover. The problem with bulk billing is it's so dependent on location. I have great GPs that can get an appointment within a day or two. More rurally you're waiting 6-8 weeks and paying $90 a pop. Despite their being flaws in Australia you can still at least get emergency life saving care that won't bankrupt your family. I'm not as well versed but there's also the safety net for medications which I believe stops the horrendous out of pocket expense across a year
Yep, safety net changes slightly each year but it's usually based on the cost of a certain number of scripts.
This year it's $1,694.00 for general patients and $277.20 for concession card holders.
When you hit it as a concession holder the cost becomes 0 and as general you get the concession card price for the rest of the year.
This will be the first year of my adult life where I won't hit it which feels pretty amazing. One new drug lets me drop multiple existing ones and not get sick as often.
I have a relative that needs about 1800 a month for their Insulin. They're disabled but if they applied for disability they wouldn't be poor enough to qualify for public assistance and the disability payments wouldn't be enough to cover the price of insulin so they're forced to live in poverty until they old enough to retire.
That's like covering rent for two extra people. That's insane.
In Portugal - which has a National Health Service - I'm getting 5 pens for €0 with a doctor's prescription (and there are mechanisms for just getting new prescriptions regularly or on request without needing to go for a doctor's appointment every time), as would anybody else that needs it, by the way, as it's not means tested.
That said, without said prescription it would be about €70 for 5 pens.
Also the local politicians are slowly but surely destroying the National Health Service in order to privatise Healthcare bit by bit.
Yeah that's what we're doing in Australia too, our Medicare system used to be great free doctors everywhere etc.
Now they're fewer and far between and private health companies got a boost from the government since the government said if you don't have private health you will pay more in tax