Kin’s Money

Source: Flickr

Every Friday I sit down and attack the paperwork that has piled up on my desk through the week. Mail, catalogues, magazines, bills, printouts, kids drawings, notes from daycare, serviettes with email addresses and phone numbers on them.

Since we get paid on Friday, and I’m of the “if it’s in the bank I can spend it” mindset, Friday works out the best day for me to pay the bills. The sooner the money is gone from my account the less likely I am to spend it, and thus get behind on my bills.

I’d like to say that my desk looks like that when I pay my bills but in reality it’s a mess of papers that I try and sort into some kind of order. I usually work on 3 piles: to file, to pay, to do. The to file and to pay piles a self explanatory. The to do pile is things I need to do something with. Cheques to be banked, statements to chase up, forms to be filled in. I try and do this pile as soon as I can, but it doesn’t often work out and some things can sit there for months.

But after today, it’s nice to know all the bills are up to date at least. Now if someone could just file the filing pile for me, my desk would be looking halfway decent. No? Oh well, it shouldn’t take me long.

Today the Government’s Medicare Levy Surcharge Bill passed the senate, lifting the threshold at which the Medicare Levy Surcharge (an additional tax of 1% of your taxable income on those who do not have private hospital cover) is paid from $50,000 for singles to $70,000, and from $100,000 for couples and families to $140,000.

While this is undoubtably good for those who would likely have been slugged with the charge (and incidentally, unless you fill out a special form advising your employer to take out extra tax you will be slugged with the 1% in the form of a tax bill at the end of the financial year - yes, we’ve been caught out), it leaves me with a bit of a dilemma.

Earlier this year we took out private hospital and extras cover as we were going to be walking a very fine line around the $100,000 mark this financial year and I didn’t want to be caught out - a $1,000 bill is not what I like to see at the end of the financial year. Now, having paid out $1620 in private health cover in anticipation (although not that much in hospital cover) I’m left wondering if it was worth it, and how long, given the state of the economy, I can afford to carry that cost.

To be honest, I didn’t consider leaving until I heard talk on the radio of premiums potentially rising 30% - particularly in light of the losses health funds have undoubtably felt with volatile investment markets and the andticpated loss of 492,000 members. In December 2005 approximately 10.12 million Australians were covered - just shy of 50%. A loss of the premiums for 1/10 of the health funds premiums combined with investment losses does not bode well for health insurers.

I wonder when we’ll see a “private health fund bailout”?