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DESPITE THE COST of living, the number of people with health insurance has continued to increase in recent years, regardless of the economic effects and limited access to healthcare during the pandemic.
The average monthly cost for private health insurance is currently €122.50 per month with an average price increase of 4% in 2021.
Given the long-standing reality of Ireland’s health service waiting lists and issues of overcrowding, it’s unsurprising that the number of people in Ireland who can afford private cover see it as a necessary purchase.
So today we’re asking: Do you have private health insurance?
This work is also co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work are the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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I had a few issues last year (not with me head) and spent a week in hospital and had millions of checks, ultrasounds and scans in both Beaumont and the Mater. There’s me thinking what would all this cost in America and me getting all this for free. I later found out it cost 6k and all was paid by Laya. Get your insurance if you can afford it.
@Paul Furey: You get the same for free in the public system here, the only difference is you go on a waiting list if its not urgent or life threatening
@Paul Furey: how long have you had the insurance for? If it’s more than 6 years you’re down money. While I certainly wouldn’t advise against insurance, especially for people with families, if you can actually afford insurance you can afford to get by without it.
We would have better health and wellbeing nationally if we had a fit for purpose health service, and it is political dogma rather than any pragmatic reasoning that has had successive governments propping up the private sector, while avoiding any meaningful (and badly needed) reform in the HSE
@Esper Anto: no you don’t get the same on a medical card. Even if you wait. My sister and I have similar medical issues. she has health insurance and I’m on a medical card . we get very different treatment.
@Brendan Gordon:
You are not being accurate there, health insurance doesn’t cover pre-existing condition for the first 6 years but if your doctor says it is new then they cover.
There is private health insurance in nearly every country. Uk has 11%, Ireland has 46%, Germany is 86%,…
I am not going into a defence of Irish system as there issues, but lets not pretend everyone has dolved the problem either
@Cowboy Ted: It’s the other way around: 10.5% with private insurance in Germany and around 88% with public health insurance. Healthcare, pension, pretty much all what’s here covered in the PRSI, is almost 20% of your gross salary + the same paid by the employer.
@Paul Furey: If you tell the hospital that you have health insurance you get put down as “private”, if you didn’t you would have been put down as “public” and not had to pay it either way.
@SJF: If you explicitly tell them you wish to be treated as a public patient, you will be. You can then tell them you have insurance to cover the basic charges. I visit hospital regularly as a public patient and pay with VHI. The VHI is for new non-emergency illnesses that need immediate attention.
@Esper Anto: but you could go on a waiting list even if it was urgent. Isn’t that the issue?
Amazing how so many have been duped into the health insurance racket in this country. I’ve never had insurance, the public system has served me perfectly well, including scans, surgery and routine procedures. People seek to have this fear of not being able to get treatment if they don’t pay the wildly inflated premiums. The public system isn’t perfect but it’s a wonderful asset to the nation.
@T: I don’t have it out of fear at all. I get money back everytime I go to my gp, a physio, a dentist etc. That all adds up for me & getting some of it back is good. I’ve also gotten lots of benefits when I was pregnant & after I had my son. The insurance company gave me money back on swimming lessons for him, I got free midwife phone line that was available 24/7 for quick checks about random things, it made the decision to go semi-private easier as I got a large amount of the money back. It’s also allowed me to not clog up A&E with a minor injury that needed treating but I was able to attend the insurance’s clinic & get it seen to free & leave a space in A&E to someone who needed it more. And the premiums aren’t that bad – we’re not talking US style here.
@T: It is yes but, this poll currently shows 71% have health insurance. So imagine if that was a real world statistic and 71% of Irish people had private cover.
Now imagine that the 71% of Irish people who had health insurance dropped it. No health insurance at all.
Consider how badly off the public system would be then?
That’s the point of a dual system. It helps keep those that can afford private care out of the public system where possible.
@Susan Walsh: yeah but you are paying for your own swimming lessons and money back on everything. The will has been well and truly pulled over your eyes.
@Reuben Gray: it doesn’t keep the private out of the public system, they just pay to jump the queue.
@thomas mcdonald: It does, a private patient is seen in private consultation rooms and procedures carried out in private hospitals. Public patients wouldn’t be seen in private rooms or usually treated in private hospitals. I’ve had the misfortune to have to go down this route a number of times myself and at no point was I using the public system, therefore leaving the public system for those who don’t have health insurance.
@T: some people get it through their job as a benefit in kind.
@T: Not true I needed a scan and ultrasound got the appointments following week. My sister had a referral sent to local hospital for scan 2 months ago and nothing. Got a phone call yesterday to say there was a 9-12 month waiting list. Did she still want to wait or go private!! I am seriously struggling to pay it but would go without before giving it up. Our health service is a mess with no sign of improvement and would be a lot worse if we all gave up private insurance.
Lucky enough to get it through the company I work for. Never take my health for granted.
I have it. Inlaws have the last 40ish years. Now that they are retired it’s becoming very difficult to keep it, and its now that they need it the most. It’s nearly forgotten by most who uave it that everytime you see a consultant cash must cross hands aswell. As the fee. Their state pension has to stretch that little bit further.
@TrollsRrealpeople2: A question is raised here by this as I understood a number of years ago a levy was added to our insurance in order to help those who are older not need to pay as much i.e. Since the 1st May 2015 if you are over the age of 34 when you first take out health insurance, you will have to pay extra for your cover under the Lifetime Community Rating (LCR) loadings. It works out at an extra 2% of your premium for each year above 34, up to a maximum of 70%.
Unfortunately I could be dead without private insurance (heart issues) so it’s my top priority. That doesn’t reflect on the wonderful people in public health but they’re woefully stretched
The Republic thrives on fear. If we don’t have insurance, you could be left waiting for years. Booming private clinics and hospitals in the 26 counties. They are so uncommon up the road in NI, because the NHS is a better service. We let on we’re big shots, building a new children’s hospital costing over €1 billion, and now need to start the maternity hospital. Gov banks on the huge dependence on private health insurance
@Tony: Insurance no longer even gets you faster treatment – my partner waited 2 years for an echocardiogram in a private hospital in Cork. He was lucky that all was ok as that’s a hell of a time to wait to find out why an ECG was abnormal.
@Tony: We’re livestock and any elected official gets to be the farmer. If Irish people are serious about a united Ireland in the next 20 years then they will need to acknowledge that Tory Britain is a more socially inclusive society where infrastructure is concerned.
@Tony: Because our health system is not fit for purpose and if everyone in Ireland dropped their private cover tomorrow the health service would literally collapse and then no one would get treatment.
@SJF: Our not fit for purpose health system is keeping me alive (various chronic conditions) at a low cost to me. I count that as fit for purpose, though it could be better.
@Mickey Finn: you completely missed the point SJF was making…
Yes.We have it for 45 years
Government want everybody to take out private health insurance so that public health can be downgraded and got rid of, remember their is a health levy in your prsi to pay for our public health
Nope.
I have it but I’m not even sure it’s worth paying for as when I needed it, the only hospitals where I could get an appointment anytime this decade were not covered by my policy. I had to pay €900 for an injection for pain relief out of my own pocket. My partner also has health insurance but waited 2 years for an echocardiogram in a private hospital in Cork. Ok, maybe he’d have waited 4 years on the private system but still…..he was lucky all was ok with his heart as that’s a crazy wait time.
Healthcare is a right not a Luxury.
nobody should be denied the right to life saving healthcare simply because they have the money to afford it.
We should make it universal and would be happy to pay more tax for that initiative to come.
You should never ever be turned away from life saving medication or surgery simply because you don’t have the money.
Yes but only because its paid for by the company I work for
Have health insurance all my life,have had two surgeries in the last 10 years without my insurance, wouldn’t be able to work.
I am in the VHI but it is mainly to ensure that I don’t end up on a trolly in a hospital corridor. As for waiting lists, a few years ago I needed to see a Dermatologist and was waiting about 6 months.
@Des Hanrahan: Regardless of you’re health insurance cover if you are brought into A&E wether insured or not, The staff there will triage you so someone with a more series injury that has no insurance will be seeing first.
Also wasn’t it the little labour man from Wexford that said if the health care system was fixed,There be no need for private companies operating here
@Dave Byrne: I wasn’t referring to A&E.
@Des Hanrahan: where do you go through to get admitted to hospital?
Yes, paid for by work for me but also includes my immediate family
Yes I do but it is only plan P with the VHI as it pays for the bed which is the only item a hospital can charge for treatment
We don’t have health insurance here. We have shared cost cover, which is quite a different matter and gives absolutely no incentive towards the living of a more healthy life. Just imagine if we tried the same thing with motor insurance. Chaos would result.
have your say