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VHI HAS ANNOUNCED that it will increase its prices across some health care plans by an average of 3%.
The changes come into effect on 1 November.
The price increases mean that adults on the Start plan will pay an extra €1.31 a month and those on the One Family plan will pay an extra €10.11 a month.
According to Declan Moran, Director of Marketing and Business Development at VHI, the main reason for the price increase is “the rising cost of claims and in particular the rising cost of claims in public hospitals”.
We are very aware of the financial pressures that continue to face our customers and have sought to keep the price increase as low as possible without compromising cover.
“We are constantly reviewing our health insurance plans to ensure they are comprehensive and relevant.
“This means providing excellent cover, such as high cost drugs and treatments.”
The company also announced a discount for customers on the One Plan family scheme.
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One step closer to USA style healthcare.
@Jonny: one step closer to NO style healthcare
Let’s compare just out of curiosity. I just insure myself here in the US. I pay $50 a week just to have insurance(the premium). I have to pay $650 in a year before my insurance will begin to pay. Then we start splitting the costs 80/20 (me 20). My out of pocket max in a year is $3000. However when I hit that I still have to pay copays($35 every dr visit) and seemingly random coinsurance payments. I would be curious what a typical plan in Ireland runs.
“We are aware of the financial pressures people are facing and will keep the increase as low as possible” in other words I’ll take off my steel toe capped boots before I kick you in the balls because I know it hurts a lot more with them on. Ah thanks very much.
“Cost of claims in Public hospitals”. I thought treatment in public hospitals was free.
This is right. I was admitted to a hospital and then a lady came around and asked me to sign an insurance form. Mu insurance paid 750 per night but I got no different treatment. Still left on an a+e trolley for two days I was there.
@Barry Davidson:
Brendan Howlin said: “If we had a first-class public health system. If we did that, there would be no reason for sustaining a private system. In order for that to happen, they really required the public [health] system to be inferior. Why else, if it was first-rate, would people pay for a private system?”
Public hospitals can bill 750/1000 per night. Minister sets rates so private companies cannot negotiate. In effect, private insurance supplementing hospital income
The government made that change in a budget a few years ago. Anyone with private health insurance has to pay for a private bed if they stay in a public hospital. Cost for the bed is €750 per night.
Never sign a form in a hospital until you’re in a private room or whatever your insurance covers.
But if you don’t sign the form you have to pay the daily rate anyway so even if only in for two nights your bill will be 150 if not medical card. In those cases you might as well get your insurance to pay
True but if you sign the form when you’re on a trolley the hospital get 750 and you get a trolley. Don’t sign the form, the hospital get nothing until you’re in a bed with a pen to sign their form. They’ll get you into a bed faster if you don’t sign it but tell them you have the cover
You can refuse to sign in as a private patient… If you do though make sure you get what youre supposed to eg private room as they have been known to charge even though you dont get!!
And why wouldn’t they when FG are allowing the public health system to collapse and are then penalising financially anyone who isn’t scared into taking out private insurance before the age of 35.
Health insurance is such a scam. Ripping people off like everything else in this country. We’re bigger fools for taking it all
We already have Health insurance, it’s called general taxation.. The taxpayer already pays for the Doctors, Nurses and Hospitals.. Why do we need to stump up for private health insurance on top of all that.. It’s a scam, like everything else in the Country..
Don’t make me laugh.
@neuromancer:yeah stitches are expensive
What happened to the Universal Health Insurance promised by Minister for Health Dr James ‘Big mansion & 23 cars” O’Reilly
They can go along and Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo themselves. I changed years ago and would rather have no private insurance than go back to this money grabbing waste of space.
Keep riding the punter, that’s the main thing lads. FFS.
Ah here – you can nearly set your calendar on it now at this stage – and yet people well still pay it !
Enough is enough.
Time to separate private and public.
Private health insurers should be forced to build their own hospitals and stop their patients jumping waiting lists, taking up beds, prioritising consultants time and indirectly causing the deaths of public patients.
Joey, people with private health insurance also pay PRSI and fund the public system. If they could opt out if funding the public system your point may be valid
Why can’t we have an NHS style health service in Ireland?
I bet theses guys won’t be investigated? Why is it they can charge for patients in public hospitals as well as tax payers paying. Tax payers should be able to use private hospitals under the public system then.
Niall who needs to be investigated? The government are the ones who charge the insurance company .
WAKE UP. PEOPLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ah well a sure sign the recovery is happening, housing costs rising, insurance costs rising and now health costs rising. All the time Enda and his crones sit back in Leinster house and twiddle their thumbs….
The process of privatising public services is building up momentum,
The theory of small government is popular. The notion is that the State handles exterior defence and law and order. Everything else is privatised and profit driven.
If you can’t afford it, you can’t have it.
I prefer the social democratic model.
In Ireland, we ensure that high net worth induviduals and MNCs are given favourable tax treatment.
Of course they’re going up. The same Doctors and consultants work in both the public and private. The consultants employed in both systems when in the public hospital recommending procedures in the private hospital they work in at the expense of the insurer. I had scans on the public system and the man in the same room had insurance and had the same scans on charged to the private insurer but both of us had the same consultant. The scans were CT, MRI, X-Ray, ECG, Echocardiogram and angiogram. The insurer must have paid out a few thousand for these scans for the other man. The only difference was he had a different ambulance to get his angiogram in the Mater.
But we end up paying in the end.
Will they ever stop increasing them, I have a relative with the VHI and it keeps on rising each year and he seems to be getting less and less with being with them but hospitals won’t give you proper treatment without it, it is all crazy?
Its just one thing after another. Are we ever gonna get a break?? So looks the car insurance cartel is having a knock on affect on health ins too.
VHI …..YOUR A DISGRACE….YOUR PLATITUDES AND UNDERSTANDING ARE AN INSULT…..I HATE BEING DEPENDANT ON YOU FOR MEDICAL INSURANCE….I’D LOVE TO TELL YOU TO F….OFF
Stop shouting and move to another company
So much for community lifetime rating actually preventing price hikes. Another load of crap being sold as gold by vested interests.
These annual health insurance increases are another example of bad state policy & governance.
The state insurer, VHI, was supposedly exposed to competition, by allowing multi national insurers to carve up the market, with more applying to operate here. Obviously a lucrative business.
Each Company with its own board, management, administration, marketing & profit targets, most of which transfers overseas.
So, instead of 1 state insurer, we have to carry multiple profit centres, plus the VHI have to comply with higher reserve standards, to eliminate unfair State support allegations to EU by the Privates.
On top of that, they all have evolved a plethora of policy plans to obfuscate price comparisons, so that it needs a CIA like intelligence service to monitor them.
& when they find that a plan is not profitable enough, they just “retire” it, & consumer Paddy has to shop around for another.
No big surprise to be honest!
Isn’t announcing a price hike in advance via the media termed ‘signalling’? Isn’t this how the motor insurance companies ensure everyone raises their prices at the same time by the same amount? This is supposedly illegal under competition law. Don’t be surprised when the other health insurers follow suit asap.
Health insurance!! What a scam.
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