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

Somebody must be agreeing some sort of deal.
It is an issue on which I do not have an entirely closed mind. It is something to which I would like to give more consideration but there are two difficulties that arise. There is exactly the issue of insurance fraud, of somebody coming into hospital and the hospital discovering the person is obese and having to get back payments because the person did not admit to being obese or something similar arising when it comes to tobacco, where a person is diagnosed with COPD but did not tell us the truth. We are not going to refuse cover but will make them pay some back loading but what happens if they do not? Does one then refuse that person cover? It is the kind of issue that needs to be thought out. I think the amendment itself is flawed in the sense that it states:

Any health benefits undertaking may, if they decide that it is in their commercial interest, reduce the premium offered to any individual who avoids behaviours which are known to have negative health effects.

No insurance company will ever reduce a premium; it will have to be able to increase it as well. It is not workable on that basis because the whole point of allowing loadings and allowing risk is that they can increase as well as decrease. This amendment only allows them to decrease.