Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The choice today is to allocate the tax relief available for health insurance to those who most need it, and that is the principle being applied. The total cost of this measure represents approximately 4% of total insurance premia. The Revenue Commissioners have estimated that the number of policyholders affected will be approximately 577,000, which is a little over half of all those who have insurance policies.

I have examples of the impact of the change. With a policy broadly similar to the old plan C covering two adults and four children, the impact will be less than 2% on the premia. By contrast, the Health Manager Gold plan, which is broadly similar to the old plan E, covering two adults and costing €10,700, will see an impact of €764 or 16%. It is clearly progressive as the people on the very high cover plans, with access to private hospitals-----

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