VHI hike plea should be vetoed

THE frightening cost of being ill in Ireland is set to spiral ever higher when the country’s main health insurance agency, the state-owned VHI, is granted an 8.5% increase that would bring the total hike since 2001 to almost 50%.

When Health Minister Micheál Martin permits such a rise, as he has indicated, on top of an 18% subscription increase last year, the VHI's 1,500,000 subscribers will be saddled with an unbearable financial burden.

Unfortunately, they are trapped in a health service where people are treated more like cash dispensing machines than patients.