Mr. Jim Breslin:

I think it is. To wind it back another bit, a legislative change was made in 2014, which allows somebody to be charged as a private patient, regardless of where he or she is accommodated in the hospital. Up to that point, the insurance company was charged if the patient was in a private or semi-private room. Over an extended period, both the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Department looked at that and said that was a major hidden subsidy to private healthcare within public hospitals because insurance companies were having their members treated in the public hospitals but because they did not get a single room, which is one of the cheaper parts of the total cost of a person's stay in a hospital, the insurance company was not paying for it. I was not there at the time but in 2014, the Minister changed the law and said that one is chargeable at a somewhat different rate, regardless of what bed one is in.

Over a period we saw the yield from private insurance to public hospitals go up, and then - I am not quoting anybody but I am giving the committee my take on this - last year the insurers said, "Why do we not try to suppress that by saying to people that if they do not get a private room, if they come in as an emergency patient and if they are not under the care of a consultant with whom they have a relationship, why go private?". They started to publicise that and we have seen is a reduction-----