The Federal Government's Lifetime Health Cover scheme, which penalises those who have not joined a health fund by age 30 with more expensive premiums, has shifted its deadline from July 1 to July 15. Although Ozecover director Peter Carroll believes the extension is generally "a welcome thing" he said in hindsight it simply means "the chaos will go on for another fortnight".
Ozecover, an online health fund comparison service launched late last month, claims to have had well over 100,000 hits in June so far. "Staff are here day and night processing applications," Carroll told ZDNet Australia. "It [the Lifetime Health Cover scheme] is stress-testing our system for sure," he added.
Ozecover expects it will continue to mop up some of the spilt milk caused by the stampede for cover for some time after the deadline. A lot of people are joining funds "willy nilly" according to Carroll, jumping into health fund policies that may be inappropriate for their needs. "A lot of people, when the madness dies down, will have health insurance but won't be sure if they've even got the right one," Carroll added. "We expect they will come back to our site at their leisure and check it out with us."
iSelect, another online health fund brokerage service, claims to have had a staggering 16,000 hits and 2,000 applications processed online yesterday alone.
iSelect's Director of strategy and development, David Urpani, told ZDNet Australia that because people were worried they would miss the original deadline, the site was updated to raise awareness that cover is instantaneous once an application is submitted online.
"This is the Internet living up to its promise of getting people away from the burden of waiting for the postal service -- a potential seven-day turnaround," Urpani said.
Health Minister Michael Wooldridge granted the two-week extension today due to the inability of health funds to meet demand before the July 1 cut-off date.
