Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, who unfortunately cannot attend. This issue was around for years during the time of the previous Government and very little was done about it.

There has been recent speculation regarding possible increases in private health insurance premiums. As the Deputies are aware, the Minister for Health has no role to play in the commercial decisions of any health insurer with regard to planned increases in the costs of its insurance products. I am aware that health insurance is becoming harder to afford, particularly for older people, as insurers increasingly tailor their insurance plans towards younger and healthier customers. The Government is strongly committed to protecting community rating, whereby older and less healthy customers pay the same amount for the same cover as younger and healthier people.

In January of this year, my colleague the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, announced changes which will help to make private health insurance more affordable for older people. Since 1 January 2012 there has been an enhanced age-related income tax credit for each insured person aged 60 years or over. Community rating of health insurance is at the very heart of our system and will remain so under universal health insurance. Risk equalisation protects community rating by spreading the burden of health care costs between the young and the old, the healthy and the less healthy. The Minister is unhappy about the trend towards segmentation in the market and has raised the issue directly with the insurers. He has consistently raised the issue of costs with health insurers and is determined to address costs in the sector in the interests of consumers.

The programme for Government contains a commitment to establish a permanent scheme of risk equalisation. This is a key requirement and is designed to keep health insurance affordable for older persons and to maintain the stability of the market. The Government agreed to the Minister's proposals for an improved risk equalisation scheme and published the Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2012 on 18 October. The new Bill will introduce a permanent risk equalisation scheme, RES, effective from 1 January 2013. There are some important differences and improvements compared to the current interim scheme which the RES 2013 replaces. In order to deal with issues of affordability, there will be two levels of cover: advanced cover, to which higher risk equalisation credits and higher stamp duty will apply, for public and private hospital plans; and non-advanced cover, to which lower risk equalisation credits and lower stamp duty will apply, for public-hospital-only plans. In addition, the new RES will allow for a greater number of risk factors, including age, gender and type of cover as well as measures of health status. A risk equalisation credit based on bed usage is proposed as a measure of health status.

In respect of access to public hospitals, as referred to by Deputy McGrath, the work of the special delivery unit, SDU, continues to focus on improving waiting times for access to both scheduled and unscheduled treatments and to maximise the capacity of existing facilities to manage patient flow. Since July 2011, when the SDU was set up, the number of people having to wait more than 12 months for treatment has fallen by 85% and the number having to wait more than nine months has fallen by 91.1%. The overall waiting list has reduced by 16%.

The Government's clear objective is for the health insurance market to remain as competitive and affordable as possible as we move towards a new system of universal health insurance. The Minister, Deputy Reilly, will continue to explore any available measures to limit the costs related to health insurance.

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