9th Sep 2009, 7:06 PM – Senate Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2009 and related bills - Second Reading - Read a second time

The majority voted against a motion that the bills be read for a second time.(Read more about the stages that a bill needs to pass through before becoming law here. ) This means that the majority disagreed with the main idea of the bills and that they will not be proceeding.

Background to the bills

The three bills are:

• the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2009;
• the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2009; and
• the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge - Fringe Benefits) Bill 2009.

They were introduced as a package to create three private health insurance tiers in order to:

• reduce the amount of private health insurance rebate eligible taxpayers with complying private health insurance are entitled to when their income for surcharge purposes is above the relevant Medicare levy surcharge threshold;(Read more about the proposed reduction of the rebate in the bills digest (419 KB) for the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2009.

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• increase the rate of Medicare levy surcharge for certain taxpayers who do not have complying health insurance and whose income for surcharge purposes is above the relevant Medicare levy surcharge threshold.(Read more about the proposed increase in the rate of Medicare levy surcharge the bills digest (339 KB) for Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2009 and the bills digest (346 KB) for the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge - Fringe Benefits) Bill 2009.)