Taoiseach denies health premiums will cost €1,600

The Taoiseach said he does not accept that health premiums will cost €1,600 per person per year when premiums become mandatory by 2019.

Enda Kenny said he could not predict the cost at this stage, because Universal Health Insurance will not be introduced “for some time.” But he said that “long before” the next general election, expected in Spring 2016, “people will understand the universal health insurance concept, principle and proposal.”

He was responding to Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, who argued that plans to launch a public consultation process on the plan was merely a ploy to push it beyond this May’s local and European elections.