All this will do is have people change their health insurance.
Frankly , if I was paying for health insurance and they weren't going to
cover the cost of a c/birth then I would change insurance providers. I think
there are more effective ways to change to c/birth rate than to financially
penalise women who have medically indicated c/births
It is also worth remembering that the private health insurance market is small (as a percentage of the general population) in the UK. Most people in the UK do not have any private healthcare - unless it is provided as a "perk" as part of your employment.
Even where people do have private medical insurance, most people will still use the state system (the good old NHS) for maternity and childbirth services, preferring to use private healthcare for non-emergency situations where NHS waiting lists are long (e.g. hip replacments, knee surgery, grommets etc).
I - personally - know of no friends who have ever used anything other than the NHS for pregnancy/ birth, and have had maybe one or two clients go privately, although I have some good friends using independent midwives (without having health insurance) where it has been difficult to get support, for example, for homebirth VBAC's.
Often, even when people begin by using a private health insurer, if they find that their pregnancy/ birth is complicated - they will find themselves transferred into the NHS - as that is where the skills lie.
I think it is difficult to necessarily transfer what has happened in the UK to Australia - as the system is quite different.
Having said that, I do believe that the private health funds will be crucial to implementation of NMAP - just as the UK government has been crucial in trying to reverse the trend in sections in the UK (as major financial stakeholders).
Debbie Slater
Perth, WA
