Have your say on health insurance
Your guide to making a submission to the Senate’s private health insurance rebate inquiry.
National Seniors Australia (NSA) has been advocating against the proposed reduction in the private health insurance rebate for people 65 and over since it was announced.
We hear from many seniors about how they value their private health insurance and are already having to make sacrifices elsewhere in their budgets to afford the increasing premiums.
We are concerned that reducing the rebate will worsen cost-of-living pressure sand force some seniors to downgrade or drop their cover, likely putting increased pressure on already stretched public health systems.
The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs recently commenced an inquiry into the legislation to give effect to this change, the Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026.
The committee is accepting written submissions for the inquiry until 21 August 2026. There may also be public hearings, ahead of the scheduled reporting date of 7 October 2026, though these dates can be subject to change and so should be checked on the inquiry website here.
NSA will be making a submission, but we also encourage members of the community to also share their experiences and concerns with the inquiry.
You can read some of our material on the proposed changes on our website:
We also encourage you to sign up to our Health Costs campaign to show your support and stay up to date with our advocacy.
A general guide on making submission is available here.
Further information on the Bill is available on the Parliament website here.
We suggest starting your submission with:
Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Private Health Insurance Amendment (Modernising the Private Health Insurance Rebate) Bill 2026
Submission can be uploaded to the Parliamentary inquiry website by stating on this webpage here. See below for the following steps.
We welcome sharing any submissions you make with NSA, but we won’t be able to lodge submissions on your behalf.
How it might work
Rather than waste government funds on rent, the government could adapt CRA to create CMA or Commonwealth Mortgage Assistance.
The scheme would be a last resort measure for people who have reached pension age and have not been able to buy a home or have lost their home through personal circumstances beyond their control, such as divorce or the loss of a partner.
Eligibility would be for Age Pension recipients who have an adequate level of savings to contribute towards the purchase of a home but not enough that they could do it themselves. This could be money from a divorce settlement, superannuation, or other personal savings.
The government would guarantee that CMA be available to the applicant as an ongoing source of income that could be used by a bank when processing the loan approval (changes to banking rules would be required to accommodate this).
CMA could be paid directly from Centrelink to a bank to offset home loan repayments to ensure it is used for this purpose.
If a person’s income increased through a change of circumstance e.g. changed employment or recoupling or if the person rented out a room in their home, CMA would be adjusted or stop, but the facility to restart the payment quickly would remain if life circumstances changed to make it easier to ensure payment continuity.
There would be restrictions on the value of the home that could be bought and the amount a person could loan but this would likely reflect commercial lending realities.
With the absence of lower cost housing in most communities, government would need to couple this with a scheme to build affordable seniors housing for older people to purchase. As discussed in an earlier Connect article, this is a section of the market that is sadly missing. An added benefit of these types of seniors projects is the efficient delivery of home care and other support services to seniors.
A significant benefit of CMA is that it adds nothing to the Federal Budget – its money that is already been spent, in our view quite illogically.
If you support new ideas like this to get older people into their own homes, then sign up to our Better Housing campaign to show your support.
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*The discount applies to the total National Seniors travel insurance premium and is for National Seniors Australia members only. Discounts do not apply to the rate of GST and stamp duty or any changes you make to the policy. nib has the discretion to withdraw or amend this discount offer at any time. This discount cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotional offer or discount. ^ Cover is subject to terms, conditions, limitations and exclusions in the PDS.
National Seniors Australia Ltd ABN 89 050 523 003, AR 282736 is an authorised representative of nib Travel Services (Australia) Pty Ltd (nib), ABN 81 115 932 173, AFSL 308461 and act as nib's agent and not as your agent. This is general advice only. Before you buy, you should consider your needs, the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), Financial Services Guide (FSG) and Target Market Determination (TMD) available from us. This insurance is underwritten by Pacific International Insurance Pty Ltd, ABN 83 169 311 193.
