THE 9.5 million Australians with private health insurance have been warned they may be forced to reapply for membership and face lengthy delays in accessing benefits if they opt out of insurance prematurely because of changes to the Medicare surcharge threshold.
The Opposition joined health insurers in issuing the warning as industry sources said thousands of people were dumping their private health insurance policies in response to the Government's budget announcement that the threshold had increased from July 1.
And Opposition senators gave their strongest indication that they would move to block the increase.
Australian Health Insurance Association chief executive Michael Armitage said policy-holders who did not wait for the outcome of a Senate review process before dumping policies could be forced to reapply for membership of funds if the move was blocked in the Senate.
