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VHI and Risk Equalisation
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If my memory serves me right, about three years ago, the VHI seemed certain that Micheal Martin, the Smokers’ Friend, would grant them Risk Equalisation. The VHI gave an upbeat statement of the company’s financial affairs, stating that it was in rude good health and, with the several millions from BUPA, would be floated on the Stock Exchange. Fast forward, and Martin has finished his evangelising mission and has been moved to pastures new.
Mary Harney, the new Health Supremo, expresses doubts about the social engineering inherent in Risk Equalisation. Suddenly the VHI’s financial good health is looking sickly, the future uncertain, all those lovely jobs at risk. Help, Help!
Amazing.
Your memory is clearly totally unreliable. Your reading of the current news is not very reliable, either: the judgment was a High Court one. If I were you, I would cease publishing until I had improved in both areas, and acquired a working knowledge of defamation law, and contempt of court. Understanding the health insurance environment would be good, too, if you wish to pronounce on such matters.
As a PD supporter I am amazed that Mary Harney brought in R.E. . It seems to clash with the usual free-market policies of the party. R.E. will only fatten an already privileged state-owned insurer that has been racking up its premia a lot lately, and is unfair to new entrants to the market who have to subsidise a rival. It acts as a deterrent to entry for newer entrants,and if BUPA leaves that will make it easier for VHI to rack up prices again without fearing a loss of market-share to competitors. We need real competition here and a market-orientated - rather than statist - approach. I hope McDowell replaces her with someone more ideologically pure after the election to reverse this strange decision.
Brian, we’re still waiting for you to apologise on the other post for lying about FG and Labour being in government when the Stardust happened. Or are you going to run again?
Okay I have just checked now and it seems I was mistaken on that - they weren’t in office then. However successive govts - including the 1982-7 FG-Labour govts - failed to implement the recommendations of the inquiry including a National Fire Service so there is plenty of blame to go around on that score and indeed for the fact that the tragedy happened as successive govts before it happened had also failed to introduce a proper regulatory environment regarding fire-safety.
Brian and Daniel try to keep on topic. when historians are looking at the site achieves in 500 years they will think stardust was an insurance company
I actually supported this move shafting old people is not a good move
Simon, if people don’t correct themselves when they lie on a post then I think it is fair game to tackle then when they pop up on other posts. Even in this case, Brian suggests that it only ’seems’ like he was mistake, rather than admitting that he was in fact 100% wrong.
On topic, I think that Risk Equalisation in an environment where there is virtual a monopoly in the form of the VHI with 80% of the market is not the appropriate response to the current situation. We should look at splitting the VHI, perhaps on a provincial basis or simply randomly allocating the subscriber base.