Health insurance - Latest VHI hike difficult to justify

Health insurance seems to be umbilically linked with constantly increasing costs as far as members of the Voluntary Health Insurance are concerned.

The autumn will bring hiked-up fees again for more than 1.5 million VHI members as premiums for its hospital A to E plans increase by 3.8% and option plans will go up by 2.5%.

The history of VHI price increases is like an ever-rising graph. The latest hike, which will be introduced in September, brings the cumulative increase in subscriptions to more than 30% since the general election in 2002. It follows increases of 18% in September 2002 and 8.4% in September 2003.