We have a hybrid system here in Australia where there are tax benefits for having private health insurance but we also have a high quality public system. The pu

We have a hybrid system here in Australia where there are tax benefits for having private health insurance but we also have a high quality public system. The public system actually comes out consistently as being more efficient than the private one, so the cost to society is less. The rebates for private health insurance (to convince people to take out private insurance to “take pressure off the public system) have actually made things worse, for most people it’s subsidised by 30% by the Government (and you avoid an extra health levy), but over the last decade or two, the premiums have just gone up significantly and the amount of things covered has been dropping. It would have been better to just put that money into the public system (which is a bit overstretched due to underfunding). So mostly the subsidy has just gone into profits for insurers. It’s hard to get people to take out the private insurance without it and tax offset, but as I said before, since the public system is more efficient, the cost to society would be less without subsidising private insurance.