NATION Private health exodus
THE nation’s biggest bank will hit some home loan customers with tens of thousands of dollars extra in interest charges by drawing out the life of their loans.
The Commonwealth Bank has more than 1.5 million mortgage customers and has notified borrowers of upcoming changes to their repayments and redraw balances, with some beginning this week.
CBA will automatically reduce minimum repayments for customers who get ahead which will slow down the rate they pay off their mortgage — but it will not extend the loan term beyond 30 years.
The bank will also automatically reduce minimum repayments for customers if their interest rate falls — previously this did not happen.
The only customers unaffected are those who have set their home loan repayments above the minimum.
Other customers who want their regular repayments to remain at the original level will have to “opt in” by manually increasing their direct debits.
This means customers will end up paying more in interest charges and pay off their principal at a slower pace.
And the repayment schedules are changing resulting in customers having their weekly and fortnightly repayments reduced if they opt to pay the minimum amount.
Analysis by financial comparison website RateCity estimated on a $ 300,000 30year home loan based on CBA’s standard variable rate of 5.22 per cent, a customer making minimum fortnightly repayments will have it dropped from $ 825 to $ 762, costing customers an additional $ 55,000 in interest charges.
RateCity spokeswoman Sally Tindall said: “It’s disappointing to see a bank make this kind of decision at the start of a royal commission.” HER debut album may have been titled Innocent In t E Eyes, but pop princess Delta Goodrem appears to be shedding her “good girl” image with a racy new single featuring her sexiest lyrics to date.
Think About You includes the opening line “Every time I look at you your clothes are coming off” and the chorus chants how “I think about you naked when I’m looking at you”.
Written with the team behind Niall Horan’s global smash Slow Hands, the fun and flirty single released this Friday is deliberately upbeat, according to Voice judge Goodrem.
“Every chapter of my career has been different and right now, with i h this song, I want people to just have fun.”
The 33- year- old has been teasing fans with snippets of Think About You on her social media all week. It is her first new material since 2016’ s No. 1 album Wings of the Wild. She is expected to film a video for the song later this month.
Goodrem is currently recording the new series of The Voice in Sydney for Channel 9. Her Olivia Newton- John biopic Hopelessly Devoted to You has yet to have a confirmed release date on Channel 7, but is tipped to screen after the Commonwealth Games.
CAMERON ADAMS HEALTH fund membership has plunged, with nearly 13,000 people dumping their cover in the three months to December as young adults and families quit the product.
The drop came even before health funds announced their latest twice- the- inflation rate premium hike of 3.95 per cent, due to take effect in April.
This also follows a hike in out- of- pocket expenses when people use their insurance.
More than 10,000 singles and families aged 30- 34 dumped their cover in the last three months of 2017.
This means the Government’s Lifetime Health Cover penalty, which hits people with a 2 per cent a year surcharge on their premiums if they don’t join a health fund by age 30, is no longer working to force people to take out insurance.
These younger, healthier members are needed to crosssubsidise the highly expensive older members in health funds.
News Corp reported recently that a tax penalty that forces people to buy health insurance has also lost its sting.
Health fund premiums have soared so high it’s now cheaper for many to pay the tax penalty than buy insurance.
Health fund membership has dropped by almost 2 per cent since June 2015 when it peaked at 47.4 per cent of the population; now just 45.6 per cent have health insurance.
Latest government data also shows the average medical out- of- pocket expenses faced by health fund members has risen by 31.7 per cent. The rise in out- of- pocket expenses is due to high surgeon charges and the Government’s continuing freeze on Medicare rebates for specialist services.
Health fund profits were up 7.3 per cent to more than $ 1.857 billion but the industry denies this means there is a pot of gold in the industry, even though some funds have posted a return on equity of 29 per cent, better than the banks.
The Government late last year announced a rescue package for the industry and slashed by $ 1.1 billion the amount health funds have to pay for medical devices like hip and knee replacements.
From April 2019, health funds will be able to offer discounts of up to 10 per cent for those under the age of 30 to encourage them to join up.
Funds will no longer get a government subsidy for providing rebates for natural therapies.
Health fund lobby group Private Healthcare Australia said the latest figures “confirms that health funds are delivering value for their members”.