Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes. My health insurance policy covers maternity. The reason it does is community rating. The rating is designed to spread the burden of the cost across society and if it did not include maternity cover, then women would pay more for health insurance than men. We could do that but it would not be fair. That is one of the benefits that should be covered across society. The reverse could be applied as well. For example, why should women pay for prostate cover? There are swings and roundabouts. We could amend the minimum benefits to include, for example, orthopaedics. What might work is having a certain number of standard plans such as the old VHI A, B and C. People would at least know what they are and then the insurers could have variations on those plans. In my discussions with insurers, they point out that anything that reduces the number of plans available may increase costs overall and we would have to bear that in mind.

Everyone is entitled to the corporate rate such as the teacher's policy whether one is a teacher or not. Corporate rates have to be open to everyone even if they are not in that profession or a corporation, which is a bit odd but that is the way it is.