HCF, Australia’s largest not-for-profit private health insurer, has welcomed the reappointment of health minister Greg Hunt.
"This is a welcome announcement for the private health insurance industry in light of the Coalition’s commitment to making health cover more affordable", said the insurer in a statement.
HCF said the Coalition's commitment to a private health sector and to restore the private health insurance rebate to 30 per cent when fiscal circumstances improve, will help it maintain its own vision for its members.
“Everything we do at HCF is to make health cover more understandable, affordable, high quality and customer-centric," said CEO Sheena Jack.
"We are pleased to see that Minister Hunt continues to support the value of private health insurance and shares the same vision - to look for opportunities to improve health cover affordability.
“We look forward to working with Minister Hunt to investigate the ways in which we can keep premiums as low as possible.”
“This year we delivered our lowest average premium increase in 17 years. We will only be able to continue to deliver this type of result to our members if we get support from government to make the health system work more efficiently,” added Ms Jack.
“We encourage the Coalition to take an early approach to issues to ensure not only our industry but the broader health system remains stable and sustainable. Let’s keep reviewing issues like out of pocket costs, stopping cost shifting by public hospitals and restoring the value of the health insurance premium rebate.”