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Lifetime Health Cover (LHC) loading encourages people to take out private hospital insurance at a younger age and maintain it over time. If you don’t take out hospital cover by 1 July following your 31st birthday, LHC will add an extra 2% to your premium for every year you didn’t have hospital cover over the age of 30, to a maximum of 70%. Once you have held private hospital cover for 10 continuous years, the loading will be removed.

The Medicare Levy Surcharge (MLS), was introduced to encourage people who earn above a certain income to take out private hospital cover, to reduce demand on public hospitals by using the private system. It can add between 1% and 1.5% to your tax bill if you don’t have private hospital cover and you earn more than $90k (for singles) and $180k (for families).^#