Not just a comfort blanket but a question of life and death for many

MANY Irish people — especially those in the second half of life — hold their health insurance premiums as dear to them as their family home or their family life assurance policy.

It’s been described by some as a comfort blanket but for many people that comparison is facetious: they see it as a matter of life and death.

I’ve always been something of a reluctant health insurance customer, being slightly ashamed of my involvement in the two-tier system.

Why should I and all the other taxpayers be paying over €14 billion for a bloated, dysfunctional health service that nearly half the country has rejected with their feet (note 49% of the population hold private health insurance) and then find myself forking out thousands in health insurance too?

I’d much rather the Government took on the interest groups and medical politics inherent in the public sector so I could dump the annual private insurance premiums.

I’m not bothered about the pastel interior schemes of private hospitals. I just want quality healthcare when I need it — and the Susie Longs of this world and bitter personal experience has shown me that only hard cash will give me that.

Yesterday, the VHI, the semi-state health insurer, decided that it would be increasing its premiums by between 15% and 45%.

Your bog standard Plan B — the Toyota Avensis of healthcare plans — will rise by 35%.

Last year VHI increased its premiums by 8% and the year previous, in January 2009, they raised prices by 23% while in September 2007, they sought and obtained another 8.5% rise.

How the hell are ordinary people going to afford to keep on paying health insurance in this country? People are being told to shop around but some of the manifold options now available are all bells and whistles and little substance.

The competition has also signalled that they will be passing on premium hikes too.

The problem is that if you have a family and still want an operation when you need it, possibly from a private hospital, you will be facing 35%-45% hikes.

Yesterday’s VHI premium hike will strike the living fear of God into so many people who have coughed up their premiums for 10, 20, 30 and 40 years and now don’t see where this year’s funds can come from.

This latest and impossibly high 35% increase comes just days after taxpayers were subjected to a tightening of tax bands, slashing of tax credits for carers, stay-at-home parents and the blind and the removal of levy and PRSI relief for private pension contributions.

It also comes in advance of more likely mortgage interest rate hikes this year and the introduction of a property tax and water charges over the coming years.

It looks like the middle classes will be hammered once again — and there is only so long that you can keep on counting your blessings that you have a job.

We’ve had three vicious budgets in the past three years, many have taken vicious paycuts so employers can keep the show on the road, and of those working, many are shouldering or attempting to shoulder mortgages alone as partners have lost their jobs.

And we won’t even mention negative equity.

Some say that these increases will lead to a mass exit from the health insurance market — especially ironic in light of the openings of new Harney-endorsed private hospitals around the country.

According to the Irish Brokers Association, the under 40s, with their large mortgages, just won’t be able to keep payments up.

“If the average age of private health members increases as a result, the cost for the remainder will rise exponentially until no one can afford it,” said Ciaran Phelan.

However recent figures from the Health Insurance Authority show that, despite record unemployment, just 3% have left the health insurance market so far — such is their fear of being left in the hands of the public service.

I cannot see, after yesterday’s hike, how that exit figure won’t increase exponentially over the coming years.

I wish that it was because Irish people found trust in the public service but with more swingeing cuts to the health budget planned, it will be frontline services that suffer while the fat cats puff on cigars in hotel lobbies around the country.