Posted by Michael Wonder on 27 Feb 2017
Forget the banks – health insurance makes them look like amateurs
27 February 2017 - More Australian than hot summers and bagging cricket selectors is the habit of criticising the Big Four banks' "outrageous" profits.
Forget the banks, they're relative amateurs. If you want outrage, check out the private health insurance rip-off as demonstrated by NIB and Medibank.
Little NIB was one of this reporting season's star turns, the market applauding the 65% surge in its first-half net profit to $71 million, and its chief executive afforded a lap of honour in the AFR, where he called for his industry to return to the good old days before Whitlam introduced Medicare, when 70 per cent of the population bought health insurance instead of the present 46-point-something per cent.
