The health minister, Greg Hunt, has said he is pushing private health insurers to deliver the lowest rise to premiums in almost two decades, but Australia’s peak doctors’ body says not enough is being done to keep premiums down long term.

On Wednesday morning Hunt tweeted: “After one of the most significant reforms to private health insurance, we are pushing insurers to deliver the lowest change to premiums in over 15 years – because every dollar matters to families, seniors & young Australians.”

To achieve this, premium rises – to take effect from April – would need to be less than 4%. However, this would still represent a rise double the inflation rate. The average industry premium rise in 2017 was 4.84%. Premiums have increased by an average 5.6% every year since 2010.

The head of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Michael Gannon, told Guardian Australia that while he welcomed news of modest premium rises, he was concerned there was no long-term plan.

“What the minister has done so far is booked in some one-off savings – for example to prostheses – which will allow premiums to be kept lower this year,” he said. “But one-off savings booked this year can’t be booked every year.”

He said he understood why many were questioning the value of private health insurance.



“The insurance pool relies on a lot of healthy people who don’t use their insurance, and a lot of them are questioning its value as premium growth outstretches growth in their wage,” Gannon said.

“The minister deserves credit for the work he has done and the savings he has made. My concern is we are still having this debate without a long-term plan to make insurance more affordable.”

The government requires health insurers to submit details of proposed premium increases to the minister before they can impose those increases on health fund members, and Hunt has consistently said he would be pressuring the insurers to minimise premium hikes.

Hunt has not made any official announcement. In a statement, he told Guardian Australia that the Department of Health was still calculating numbers and the annual premium changes would be announced in the coming weeks.

“We are working hard to ensure private health insurance is value for money,” he said.

Scrutiny of the private health insurance industry is increasing. A Senate committee inquiry into the affordability and value of private health insurance, which published its final report in December, found Australians were increasingly being offered low-value policies, with exclusions for essential services creating unnecessary patient stress.



The CEO of Private Healthcare Australia, Dr Rachel David, is expected to comment on the next round of premium increases later on Wednesday morning. She told News Corp while she was unsure what the average premium rise would be, “at the moment it would be on track to be under 4%”.



In its pre-budget submission to the federal government, Private Healthcare Australia also said the value of the Medicare levy surcharge, imposed on high-income earners who do not take out private health cover, should be increased to push them to take out and maintain private health cover. It recommended an increase of 50 basis points across the board, under which surcharge would start at 1.5% and reach 2% for the highest income earners.

The call for an increase to the levy was supported by Bupa in its submission, which read: “It is now at a point where for some individuals and families the additional tax imposed may be less than the premium to be paid, and subsequently the choice of many healthy people will be to pay the levy, contributing to the decline in private health insurance customers.”

Private health membership as a proportion of the population fell for the first time in 2017.