Health Insurance to Cost 50% More In the Coming Year

The policies are becoming unaffordable for the common man.

There will be a 50% increase in health insurance in the coming year as devised by Health Care Minister James Reilly.

The government plans to charge insurance companies for all those with health cover when they use public hospitals, which means they would charge even those who did not take a private bed.

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The Chief Minister's Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme will benefit 1.34 crore families. Sum assured per family is Rs. 1 lakh/year for a total of 4 years.

The Department of Health is all set to generate € 6 million in 2013 according to The Irish Independent. Accordingly, public hospitals can charge the insurer for every patient who goes to a state hospital, holding a health policy. Likewise insurers like VHI, Laya, Aviva and GloHealth would be forced to charge the consumer higher premiums.

The Department of Health would charge € 1000 for a private bed in a public hospital now – a hike from € 75 it used to be. Now Dr. Reilly was bound by the new law to cut millions of Euros from a budget of € 13.5 billion.

According to Insurance expert Dermot Goode, this would lead to higher premiums for families, as they would be coping with a steep hike "Given that the public hospitals will now be able to charge around €1,000 per night instead of €75 per night for these beds, the impact will be significant," said Mr. Goode. "There is no doubt that this will be passed on."

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The changes also impact the insurer as they cannot negotiate prices with a public hospital – as they could with public hospitals – where they could demand better terms and prices.

Health experts feel along with increased premiums, policies would be redesigned to cover only certain public hospitals.

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2.1 million People have private insurance cover and have already seen a hike of 20% in the past year.

The cost of policies has already doubled since 2009. 66000 people have cancelled their health cover in the year 2011 and 54000 people cancelled in 2012.

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Health insurance has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments in the non-life insurance industry with 30% growth in 2010-11 with annual premium collections being over Rs 6,000 crores.

A Department of Health Spokesperson said to Irish Independent, "Primary legislation will be introduced during 2013 to provide for charging of private in-patients in public hospitals where they are not in a designated private bed.

On that basis, Budget 2013 has provided for additional patient income of €60m in 2013."

By March a new set of levies is to be imposed on every policy such that Euros 200 will be the added expenses for every typical family (2 adults and 2 children) a year.

Source-Medindia