Is Australia Quietly Drifting Toward a Health Oligopoly? The Rise of Insurer-Owned Allied Health

Two of the country’s largest private health insurers — **Medibank and** **Australian Unity** — are no longer just paying for health services. Increasingly, they are also **delivering** them.

Through vertically integrated subsidiaries such as **Amplar Health** (Medibank) and **Remedy Healthcare / Plena** (Australian Unity), these insurers are expanding their roles from funders to full-service providers of allied health, hospital-in-the-home, telehealth, rehabilitation, and aged care support.

If patients can only access services from their insurer’s internal network — whether by financial incentive or default system design — then true competition and informed choice are eroded.