30% rebate on private health insurance contributions You must be eligible for a Medicare card to claim this rebate When you buy private health cover, the government will pay 30% of the cost of your contributions People aged from 65 years to 69 years are eligible for a 35% rebate and for those people over 70 years of age the rebate available is 40% You can claim the rebate by health cover contribution reduction through your private health insurance fund direct payment from Medicare offices tax rebate in your annual tax return High income earners Medicare Levy surcharge Are you single and earning more than $80,000 taxable income per year or a couple or family earning over $160,000 combined taxable income per year? (The thresholds applicable for the 2010-11 tax year were $77,000 for singles and $154,000 for couples/families). When a family has more than one child their combined income can be an additional $1,500 for the second child and each child thereafter before they incur the Medicare Levy surcharge If your income is above the threshold, and you don’t have hospital cover - or your hospital excess is high – you will pay an extra 1% Medicare Levy surcharge at tax time. That is at least an extra $800 in tax for singles. Choose hospital cover with an excess of $500 or less if you are single, or $1000 or less for couples and families and you won’t pay this surcharge Lifetime health cover Applies to private hospital cover only It is applied to everyone born after 1 July 1934 who is over 30 and taking out hospital cover for the first time after 1 July 2000 For each year you are over 30 when you first take hospital cover you will be charged an extra 2% in contributions For example, if you were 35 when you first took hospital cover you would pay 10% more in contributions than someone who had cover since they were 30 The maximum loading a person can be required to pay is 70%, payable by people who first take out hospital cover at age 65 or older People who have paid a lifetime health cover loading on their private health insurance for 10 continuous years, are entitled to have the loading removed. click through to use the government Lifetime Healthcover calculator