I’ve always thought that whilst Rudd was a good candidate for PM, Wayne Swan was a bit incompetent for Treasury. His raising of the Medicare Levy from $50,000 to $100,000 for singles (This means that you only start paying the 1% surcharge when you start earning more than $100,000!) will definitely mean that the vast majority of people under 30 will opt to not take private health insurance. I have no understanding of the rationale over this one? Does he think that the average Australian salary has now risen to $100k??

What I can understand is that this will mean a higher premium for me, more people in the already stuffed up public health system, and dire straits for private hospitals and companies that invest heavily in them:

Take Ramsay Health Care for example. Instead of making a killing at $12.60, I’ve had to settle for just barely break-even yesterday. Today it’s plummetted another 5% which is lucky I called it quits yesterday on RHC. Damn you Wayne Swan…!

Why not fix the public hospital system first before fiddling around with the Medicare Levy? When you’re in a company with crap managers, you can choose to leave to another company… what happens with you have a crap treasurer?

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