Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This annual legislation is necessary to support the community-rated health insurance market in Ireland. The risk equalisation credit and stamp duty levies are critical to the sustainability of our health insurance market, which is designed to be equitable and fair by spreading the cost of health insurance across the entire insured population. This ensures everyone pays the same price for the same health insurance product. We must sustain community rating in our health insurance market so older citizens and people with illnesses can afford health insurance and are not discriminated against in favour of younger people.

I had to go through that because I wish to raise a few issues with the Minister of State. The Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2022 provides that stamp duties on non-advanced health insurance contracts will decrease to €109, which is a decrease of €12 and comes on top of a decrease of €35 again this year. I welcome that. The stamp duties on advanced healthcare insurance contracts will increase to €438, which is an increase of €32. Despite this, the increased levy on the advanced cover will still be lower than in 2021 when it was €449. However, the stamp duties collected on health insurance contracts do not go into the Exchequer. They are collected into the risk equalisation fund and redistributed in the form of credits to health insurers to compensate for the additional cost of insuring older and less healthy people. People are getting older and it is important we look after them and legislate on this.

I had to look into all this because I have had many phone calls to my office from elderly people who are now cancelling their private health insurance. They are doing so because of the cost of living. They cannot afford to pay their private health insurance. One particular lady came in who was very upset. She had had private insurance for more than 30 years and had worked all her life. It was so unfair for her. She told me she always had the security that, if she got sick in the morning, she could get into a hospital or in for an operation but now she was fearful. While I welcome this Bill, we need to have a good overall look at our health system and ensure people, and elderly people in particular, who always had health insurance do not lose it now because they feel they cannot afford it. Even though these changes are good, I feel that is what is happening. I always feel a medical card is nearly like a gold card because with a medical card you have your GP and your prescription. Many people are now qualifying for their medical card but many of them like to keep both. They like to have their medical card but some, if they can afford it, like to have private health insurance too. We need to do more. We are a country in which people are living longer, thank God. We need to address some facts in our society. People are waiting for operations. I have people waiting on cataract surgery. I have people waiting on hip operations. There are so many people who are waiting on operations. That needs to be addressed first of all and it was brought up by another Deputy, but there are huge issues that we need to look at. I am sure the Minister of State will be aware of them from his own clinics.

As I said, I had to go through all this myself. I want to go back and explain to the people who are coming to me about this particular legislation. We need to do more. We need to help the people who always had private health insurance or would like to have it. It is a bit of a security blanket for people. I am thinking of the people who have paid for it all their lives. I am repeating myself but the people who are contacting me now feel we need to do more for them. I therefore ask that we look at doing more and that we try to help the most vulnerable. I am aware this is not the Minister of State's remit and he is stepping in for the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, but we need to look at the system overall because there are people who really need help. I ask that we look at that.

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