"Australia was slowly and quietly slipping too far towards the...

"Australia was slowly and quietly slipping too far towards the US health care model. A healthy balance needs to be found."

Not sure of the point you are trying to make here, but balance is exactly what the concept of privately-funded health care was intended to achieve: viz., people who can't afford to pay for their medical needs can rely on state-funded healthcare, but wealthy people, who can afford to pay for their medical needs, should do so.

The more that people, who can afford to pay for their own health needs, don't participate in the private health care sector the more strain it places on the already-stretched public sector.

The problem is that the majority of people - out of a sense of entitlement, possibly - don't view private health insurance as exactly that (i.e., insurance); rather, they view it through the lens of "getting value for money" (i.e., a case of, "If my health fund premiums exceed my claims, then what's the point? I may as well go public, in that case.").