Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 19 February 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children

VHI: Chairman Designate

9:30 am

Photo of Colm BurkeColm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Downey is welcome. I apologies for being late, I was in the Seanad dealing with a health issue. I have read Mr. Downey's presentation, in which he refers to 29 areas in which the VHI has changed the cover it provides from inpatient to outpatient. This is something I have raised on a number of occasions over the last three or four years. Is this process going to continue and does Mr. Downey believe further work can be done on it? Medicine has moved on now and there are many areas where a day-care procedure can be provided rather than an inpatient one. Can there be further changes over the next 12 months or two years, and what kind of savings can be made?

The second issue I wish to raise, the growing aging population, is very much to the fore in current health debates. That will automatically create demands on health care. Has the VHI looked at the changes that will occur over the next five to ten years as regards the demand on services? What level of increased costs are we talking about and will this in turn affect the kind of moneys that will be required for health cover? We have over 585,000 people over 65, and over the next 16 years that figure will go very close to 990,000. That is a very short period in real terms. Has the VHI looked at this issue in terms of the system as it exists at the moment?

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