The Disappearance of Health Insurance

[Irish Liberty Forum]

When the VHI lost its monopoly over health insurance in Ireland, it succeeded in maintaining market share through the prohibition of medical underwriting ("community rating") and then the related forced transfer of payments from its rivals ("risk equalisation"). In these harsh times the younger generations, who until now have been subsidising the elderly, have realised that they get ripped off by this system. They are abandoning it in droves, causing premiums for the suckers who are left to rise violently by 50-65% in a year. The results? In the short-run, more relatively well-off people contributing nothing to their healthcare and using up public resources which could have been reserved for the poor. In the long-run (though not too far away), the effective total disappearance of private health insurance in Ireland. And all because the powers that be wouldn't let go of one of their monopolies.

I've been arguing that this was a disastrous system for years. All I was told was that I was heartless for thinking that things would work better if insurance contracts were allowed to have some actual relationship to the risks which were supposedly being insured. Imagine the carnage which would follow if car insurance premiums all had to be set at exactly the same level. It's entirely predictable that the system would collapse.

Further premium rise for VHI customers - RT News

[uriah]

When the VHI lost its monopoly over health insurance in Ireland, it succeeded in maintaining market share through the prohibition of medical underwriting ("community rating") and then the related forced transfer of payments from its rivals ("risk equalisation"). In these harsh times the younger generations, who until now have been subsidising the elderly, have realised that they get ripped off by this system. They are abandoning it in droves, causing premiums for the suckers who are left to rise violently by 50-65% in a year. The results? In the short-run, more relatively well-off people contributing nothing to their healthcare and using up public resources which could have been reserved for the poor. In the long-run (though not too far away), the effective total disappearance of private health insurance in Ireland. And all because the powers that be wouldn't let go of one of their monopolies.

I've been arguing that this was a disastrous system for years. All I was told was that I was heartless for thinking that things would work better if insurance contracts were allowed to have some actual relationship to the risks which were supposedly being insured. Imagine the carnage which would follow if car insurance premiums all had to be set at exactly the same level. It's entirely predictable that the system would collapse.

Further premium rise for VHI customers - RT News

The younger generation has not been subsidising the elderly people of the present.
They are subsidising the elderly people they themselves will become sooner than they realise.

When I was twenty, and for the subsequent, youthful, healthy years, I paid VHI community rating.
The young, healthy Uriah paid more then to subsidise the decrepit, higher-risk Uriah I have now become.

Why should I now be charged extra because I am older? I paid for my now higher risk status over the years.
I subsidised myself.

It's the only way private health insurance will work.

[jetttxyz]

More and more people are giving up private health insurance.

This will result in more people seeking help through the public system.

It will most certainly result in chaos.......unless these persistent, continuous and hefty increases are part of a cunning plan.

Keep on increasing the premia....people will leave private health insurance....and voila/hey presto....we've a Single Tier System!!!

[Lonewolfe]

We ought to be demanding a decent public service like the NHS!

[Bill]

fortunately I don't have to pay for health insurance

[Bill]

We ought to be demanding a decent public service like the NHS!

I've been in an NHS hospital (Manchester Royal Infirmary) really they are as bad as the hospitals in Dublin

[punchdrunk]

We ought to be demanding a decent public service like the NHS!

The NHS is struggling. If you were listening to Question Time on the BBC tonight you would have heard a woman describe how her appointment was cancelled six times. There was a mention of lack of money and frontline staff shortages.

[RobertW]

I've been in an NHS hospital (Manchester Royal Infirmary) really they are as bad as the hospitals in Dublin

So you paid €100 to wait ten hours overnight to see a doctor from A&E?

[Irish Liberty Forum]

The younger generation has not been subsidising the elderly people of the present.
They are subsidising the elderly people they themselves will become sooner than they realise.

What you're describing isn't insurance, it's a savings scheme. You're suggesting that there shouldn't be insurance companies, only very large and inefficient collective savings schemes. There's always the risk with such a system that the people who are furthest from collecting their "savings" would, some day, stop contributing. That day has arrived.

[Bill]

So you paid €100 to wait ten hours overnight to see a doctor from A&E?

nope, they don't charge but the wait was about the same