Very true, it’s only the people that constantly use it that will keep it on so prices will only keep going up.

Exactly and suddenly within the space of a year people are living longer. They’re running out of excuses.

Already done it.
The health insurance model as provided by VHI & the other insurers is no longer fit for purpose.

@John, even if you have to cut back you policy to the bear minimum, I recommend you hold onto it. Our Public Health Service is deplorable at best.

One of the problems is they’re losing the low-cost customers who prop the system up, and the high-cost customers are getting even more costly.

What are they supposed to do?

its cheaper to FLY from cork to dublin!!!!

CIE massive rip off…

Factually incorrect – consultants don’t make much out of private procedures – on account of the fact that whatever is paid by the insurance company has to be used to pay for the support staff, the hospital bed, the hospital facilities, etc etc etc.
The only consultants that make any money on private lists are the plastics. And most of that is because insurance companies don’t cover most procedures the plastics carry out – on account of the fact that their work is not seen as life threatening.
Once again – the Irish health system is based on priority – there is no major benefit to getting health insurance – yes you might get treated a bit quicker – but if you need treatment fast, treatment fast you will get on the public list.
Please don’t post below me saying “I was left waiting for 2 years in 2005 for a scope” – not interested – a lot has changed with the times – so should your records.

in response to above .you do get treated quicker for non life threatening medical problems much quicker when you have health insurance.

you get seen and sorted in weeks compared to years sometimes in the public system .

OK Michael – how about I was left waiting 3 months in 2012? Isn’t that great, except that my private health insurance had me seen within 24 hours and diagnosed with a dangerous chronic condition. By the time the public system was ringing to offer met scope I was 3 weeks away from massive surgery to sort the life-threatening aspect of my illness. Soo do one pal – the VHI have been amazing throughout, seen quickly and provided with home nursing when I got out of hospital. I’ll pay whatever they want. If you haven’t been seriously I’ll in this country then you haven’t yet realised how great your health insurance is- I hope you always think its a waste of money, it was a waste of money for me for ten years! Then it gave back everything I ever spent with knobs on.

Apologies if it’s a bit impassioned but healthy people being ‘expert’ on health insurance is baloney.

OK Michael – how about I was left waiting 3 months in 2012? Isn’t that great, except that my private health insurance had me seen within 24 hours and diagnosed with a dangerous chronic condition.

By the time the public system was ringing to offer me the scope I was 3 weeks away from massive surgery to sort the potentially life-threatening aspect of my illness.

So do one pal – the VHI have been amazing throughout, seen quickly and provided with home nursing when I got out of hospital. I’ll pay whatever they want. If you haven’t been seriously ill in this country then you haven’t yet realised how great your health insurance is- I hope you always think its a waste of money, it was a waste of money for me for ten years! Then it gave back everything I ever spent with knobs on.

First of all 3 months is not a long time to wait on the public list.
People always assume that their condition is the worst ever seen in the history of ever. It’s not. You were made wait on the public list because there were people in need of treatment faster than you. I am glad you got treatment faster, but the likelihood is that had you waited, you would have been treated by the same consultant, in the same hospital, with the same support team.
The reality is that those who go private will always be treated faster than public – purely because the public system deals with everything – from fractures, chronic conditions, strokes, trauma, emergencies, whatever walks, crawls, wheels, arrives in the door, whereas the private system can (quite literally – and do) pick and choose what it is that they deal with.
Patients nowadays are mostly treated publicly – even when they have insurance – they take the benefits of their policy with regard scans, X-rays, and scopes and get treated by teams best able to deal with whatever ailment you present with – those teams are by and large on the public system.
Again, I am glad you are getting treated faster – but were it necessary, your treatment would have been in action as early as tomorrow morning on the public system.
That is not me speaking as a healthy person, that is me speaking from experience.

Get a life!!!GP’s here are ripping us off. In another European country like France,I read a GP consultation is ? 25.

My comment was in response of@Niall Murray.

@ Caroline Locke
Calm down there, there was a hint of sarcasm in the first sentence of my post ;)
Not sure why your going on about GP’s but you should read about how they’re free in the UK. I also pay through the roof for them and my 1400 p/a vhi.

Michael – I was referred out of A and E for the scope, I wasn’t looking for one for the craic. I have seen people getting their scopes the next day on the public system, they have to make a show of themselves in order to convince anyone they need it – not my way.

Three months isn’t long to wait, unless you need treatment much sooner than that. It’s all relative. I don’t think I’m a special beautiful snowflake of a medical patient, I’m only too aware of how many very ill people there are waiting on treatment.
You sound as though you’re writing from a health professional POV rather than a patient, if that’s the case, although you’d have experience it’s be very different in mature token. Apologies if I’ve misread that though. And you’re dead right I would have had the same team in the same hospital, I just might have been seeing them in an emergency rather than a planned situation because I would have still been waiting on my diagnosis and caused myself all manner of harm.

Apologies for typos and earlier double post – phone acting the maggot.

Competition*

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong… if you pay for insurance you should be able to choose your Dr and your hospital. That’s the purpose of being insured

Sorry Ms Jones I know Dr Smith has treated you for the last two decades, but there’s another Dr at a private hospital 120 miles that’ll do it for €50 quid cheaper. So we’ll need you to travel up there twice a week.

One way for costs to spiral is for people to present to an acute public hospital and then “go private” as an inpatient. There is no option for these patients to go to a “cheaper” private hospital because they don’t provide the acute services the patient needs.

And yet people complain about private patients in public beds – who by the way, are extremely good value for money, considering that the state gets paid by the insurer or consultant for that patients stay – make up your mind people.

Al you too will be old one day, lets hope u are treated with the same contempt u seem to hold for our older generation.

Community rating.Idea everyone pays the same.The young subsidise the elderly,until its their turn and the future young subsidise them.

Flawed logic because we all know that by the time people of my age group (I’m 31) really need the VHI there’s going to be no younger people (barring the very wealthy ones) on the system to subsidise us.

Terrible strategy that could only have come out of semi- state groupthink.

Only saying how it is Lonore never said i agreed with the system.

Agreed and what’s going to cause a much bigger problem for the health service is that out of my social circle the number of people (now approaching their mid to late 30s) that have no pension provision of any kind and no intention to take one out is the vast majority. Of those that do, the plans aren’t going to be anything like sufficient to provide for luxuries such as private health insurance. Given that, in the long term a majority of the population having insurance will be a thing of the past.

We need to bite the bullet and build a good public system, accessible by all and paid out of tax. If someone wants an ensuite, a menu and freshly squeezed orange juice let them pay for it outside the system themselves.