Health Insurance and Cycling.

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Tequestra
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Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby Tequestra » Tue Jun 19, 2018 1:03 pm

I would like to establish the rough ratio of active cycling enthusiasts who commute on the public roads in Australian cities with or without private health insurance. Ideally, this would be a good place for a poll. Question #1 would be, "Do you have private health insurance?"

I searched the forum but could find no instructions on how to start a poll here, so this will have to do.

Please reply honestly only if you do not have private health insurance.
Viva le Tour Electrique' !!!

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10speedsemiracer
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby 10speedsemiracer » Tue Jun 19, 2018 1:23 pm

Below the text box when creating the post, there are two 'buttons' one which is a lighter blue named Options, and one next to it (to the right) in darker blue named Poll Creation.
Campagnolo for show, SunTour for go

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10speedsemiracer
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby 10speedsemiracer » Tue Jun 19, 2018 1:24 pm

..also, I do not have private health insurance and haven't since the 1980s.
Campagnolo for show, SunTour for go

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Tequestra
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby Tequestra » Tue Jun 19, 2018 1:32 pm

10speedsemiracer wrote:Below the text box when creating the post, there are two 'buttons' one which is a lighter blue named Options, and one next to it (to the right) in darker blue named Poll Creation.
Thanks mate. All I get is the one dark blue rectangle with 'Options' below a circled '+' sign which seems to embolden with mouseover but there's nothing about a poll included. Maybe I haven't written enough posts yet?
Viva le Tour Electrique' !!!

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ValleyForge
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Location: Brisbane

Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby ValleyForge » Tue Jun 19, 2018 1:34 pm

City = yes
Active cyclist = yes
Commuter = not so much
PHI = yes

FWIW - Qld cyclists who commute are "generally" covered by WorkCover (Worker's compensation)
Ha ha ha! Cookies on dowels.

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Ancientflatulence
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby Ancientflatulence » Tue Jun 19, 2018 7:40 pm

Country Town = Yes
Streets And Bike Paths = Yes
Fat Old Bastard Trying To Get Fit = Yes
PHI = Yes

Have I used the PHI thus far ......... Hardly at all ........ grrrr

Is it dead money ....... remains to be seen ....... :) :)

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RonK
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby RonK » Tue Jun 19, 2018 8:52 pm

Tequestra wrote:Please reply honestly only if you do not have private health insurance.
I have private health insurance - but since I don't have to reply honestly, I could be lying. :wink:
Cycle touring blog and tour journals: whispering wheels...

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Tequestra
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby Tequestra » Tue Jun 19, 2018 9:06 pm

RonK wrote:
Tequestra wrote:Please reply honestly only if you do not have private health insurance.
I have private health insurance - but since I don't have to answer honestly, I could be lying.
This is not facebook, yet, I hope. I trust every other member of this forum than, well I still have to have a word to my gracious Mother after yesterday, but I trust you too, Mr Ron, K., if you promise not to piss me off too much with your extremism. Cycling is the latest craze, man. It must have been just invented lately if you read the latest magazines! (joke). We're on the same side, mate.

There was once a cartoon in some newspaper in Perth about the private jetty next to the harbour on the Swan River. Two cartoon kids around nine or ten arguing over the gate on the shore. The rich kid asked the poor kid, ":Are you a member of the public? ... or are you a member of the Private?"

That said it all. I have taken my chances and ridden my Tequestra the Tequesta unsuspended blue 26" classic I found in the council verge collection before 07:30(GMT+8), withoutwheels, and rebuilt with a 700C x 19mm front I found in another council verge collection up the road and paid $35 grrr-damned dollars for the tyre!!!, and then fitted a 48v 100W rear hub motor I bought off a wonderful wholesasler I found on AliExpress, with front hi-low beam headlights, tail light, brake light horn and (expletive) INDICATORS on CHRISTMAS FRICKING DAY LAST YEAR, and survived the ABC.

I have no private health insurance, ergo I have better reasons than most to prohibit myself from cycling on Australian highways until there is evidence of social change. Thank you all for your advice.
Viva le Tour Electrique' !!!

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queequeg
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby queequeg » Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:02 pm

I have Private Health Insurance, because if I didn't, the cost of the additional Medicare Levy would cost me more than the yearly premium for the family.
Hence, the sound economic explanation is that even if you don't use it, it's cheaper to have it and not use it than it is to not have it and not use it.

Of course, in the last 18 months I have had the need to utilise the services of the health system for the first time in my life, and I ended up using a combination of private and public health. I am out of pocket a few thousand dollars out of a total cost of something like $45,000. What costs bucket loads of money is out of hospital specialists, which are not covered by private health at all, and are barely covered by Medicare. $260 for a 15 minute consultation. Not a bad hourly rate!
'11 Lynskey Cooper CX, '00 Hillbrick Steel Racing (Total Rebuild '10), '16 Cervelo R5, '18 Mason BokekTi

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Tequestra
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby Tequestra » Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:14 pm

queequeg wrote: Of course, in the last 18 months I have had the need to utilise the services of the health system for the first time in my life, ... Not a bad hourly rate!
How many days did you have to call the 'nurse' to bring a tray to the public dorm' with everyone's visiting relatives watching to clean up your faeces? Did they give you laxatives or did they make a joke out of you?

PS: What about the nightmares? Do you still get the colours, or is it just greys?
Viva le Tour Electrique' !!!

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Tequestra
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby Tequestra » Tue Jun 19, 2018 10:44 pm

Thank you every decent fellow who has helped me with my most terrible decision I have ever experienced.

When I became separated from my wife, I had three months to subconsciously know what to believe in the back of my mind before the catalytic moment. My Mother and I are still on speaking terms this week, but mostly we are as close as Same Blood, that's usual. Breaking up with my wife was the most important moment in my life in the legal sense, and I have just scrubbed what I wrote about it because I got to keep the bikes, and now, although I love bikes.

I love bikes since I was three. I told Mr Innes that I could not start work as a bicycle mechanic on the Monday because I had the last chemistry exam at high school, so he let me start on a Tuesday. I am not that drugged out bloke from Las Vegas. I don't have some kind of ego problem with my bikes. FFS!

I name my bikes like I name all my laptops, because I rely on my bikes to keep me alive. I think of my non-expendable assets in what the boffins would refer to as some kind of 'anthropomorphic' disorder, because too man of them have never had cause to understand why sometimes it makes bloody good sense to love the things that one depends on for survival. Sometimes, some people get too caught up in the lead guitar to resonate with the bass guitar.

I now realise that I do not have the power to fight the Church. Let me read in silence and !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !! from now on. Goodnight.
Viva le Tour Electrique' !!!

CKinnard
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby CKinnard » Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:18 pm

Private health insurance is skewed by the tax laws these days.
If your net taxable income is over a particular threshold (around $75,000pa last time I took an interest), then you are better off having private cover.

edit: whoa...just checked the medicare levy surcharge threshold for base income, and it has gone to $90k!

Nevertheless, if you are injured on your bike, you will be very reliant on the public health system - ambulances; and emergency and trauma are very much a public hospital thing, especially outside capital cities.

A guy I used to ride with was hit by a car, and was in hospitals for 9 months, all public.

There's a lot to be said for public health, but only if a nation has a stable culture of personal responsibility, and mental and emotional maturity. The UK and Australia don't which is why their public health systems consume more than 25% of all tax revenue, and are thereby unsustainable. All that money going on health care for lifestyle diseases could be spent on better transport infrastructure (inc bicycle), better built environs, better long term planning, etc, etc.

rant off, lights out!!!

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Tequestra
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby Tequestra » Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:26 pm

CKinnard wrote:if a nation has a strong culture (!!!) of personal responsibility, maturity, and education.
Amen. I forgive you, CKinnard. You were the first one ever asked me about necator-americanus.
Viva le Tour Electrique' !!!

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queequeg
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby queequeg » Wed Jun 20, 2018 1:15 am

Tequestra wrote:
queequeg wrote: Of course, in the last 18 months I have had the need to utilise the services of the health system for the first time in my life, ... Not a bad hourly rate!
How many days did you have to call the 'nurse' to bring a tray to the public dorm' with everyone's visiting relatives watching to clean up your faeces? Did they give you laxatives or did they make a joke out of you?

PS: What about the nightmares? Do you still get the colours, or is it just greys?
I really don’t know how to respond to that. I’ve read your response multiple times, and I still don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
'11 Lynskey Cooper CX, '00 Hillbrick Steel Racing (Total Rebuild '10), '16 Cervelo R5, '18 Mason BokekTi

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Tequestra
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Re: Health Insurance and Cycling.

Postby Tequestra » Wed Jun 20, 2018 1:25 am

queequeg wrote:I really don’t know how to respond to that. I’ve read your response multiple times, and I still don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
I see you never read Melville. Never mind. We all get what we pay for in the end, sonny boy.

PS: Today was the nineteenth, which was my most unlucky day of my life, and now it is Wednesday! HOORAY! I habve survived the worst, now the only thing to worry about is how to stayawake until sunrise, and I know JUST the one to keep me company right now.

She will be busy gathering the white latex from the rubber trees on The Peninsular in the dark because it is a clear night tonight near The Equator, so a good night to reduce the price of rubber for The ShareHolders so she'll be ou there tonight for sure, right now, with her goddamned bucket, phucking those trees for all that they are woirth in Hat Yai economic houses, and it is perfectly justified in economic terms because without the tyre industry there would be no rubber farms so there would be no rubber trees grown so those greedy trees should be grateful that us bipedal hominids have invented agriculture so that we can ruin their vegetative surroundings to make a goddamn dollar out of THEIR lives, FFS!

Nope, I'm afraid. I love my most adored and loved online Sister who has toiled at her family rubber plantation since HM Bhumiphol had black hair but it would be exceptionally rude to interrupt even one's best friend without farking good reason in civilised culture, so I am all alone tonight.

The best thing about lonely nights is that if you wait long enough, you will eventually conjure up some logical reason why a lonely night turns into an early morning. Goodnight again.
Viva le Tour Electrique' !!!

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