Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

359. To ask the Minister for Health his views on a matter (details supplied) regarding health insurance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43779/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Periods of cover on health insurance plans held outside the State are not taken into account for the purposes of waiting periods, as such plans do not comply with health insurance legislation or the key principles of community rating, open enrolment, lifetime cover and minimum benefit on which the Irish private health insurance regulatory system is based.

Community rating is a fundamental cornerstone of the Irish health insurance system and means that people who are old or sick do not have to pay more than the young and healthy. In other health insurance systems the level of risk that an individual presents directly affects the premium paid. Thus, different health insurance systems are not directly comparable or related, so periods of cover or time served as an insured person elsewhere are not interchangeable with the Irish regulatory system.

Any individual who takes out health insurance as a new entrant, whether resident here or returning from abroad, may have to serve waiting periods before they are fully covered (detailed in the following table). The application of waiting periods helps support community rating and is an important tool for insurers to combat practices where someone could potentially take out a health insurance policy to avail of a particular treatment and then cancel the policy once treatment had been received, without either penalty or sustained contribution to the community-rated system.

New Customer Maximum Waiting Periods