VHI PRICE INCREASES:A REPORT into the VHI commissioned by the Department of Health last summer should be published without delay, Fine Gaels health spokesman and deputy leader Dr James Reilly has said.
The report from the US consultancy Milliman was commissioned by the department in order to examine the VHI’s claims costs and how they have increased over recent years.
If it was published now it would allow for a transparent assessment of the State’s largest health insurer’s finances, Dr Reilly said. “I have heard whispers about it and I think it should be published without delay,” he said. “The Irish taxpayer has paid for it and should be allowed to see it,” he said.
On Thursday the VHI said it had made internal cost savings of €15 million and reduced the amounts it paid to consultants and private hospitals.
The report was commissioned as an initial step in the Government’s plan to sell the company in 2013. Its intention was to provide “a clear picture of the engines that drive” VHI costs, a department spokesman said last July.
At that time consultants from US actuarial firm Milliman asked the insurer for details of its customers and their medical history for the previous five years. But the company declined to pass it on in order, it said, to protect the privacy of its customers. It provided more general information instead. The refusal led to a delay in the completion of the report but it was still expected to be ready by September at the latest.
Dr Reilly said that if it were published, it would allow people to see where and how the insurer was spending its money. “There is an underlying theme here and it sees the HSE and the VHI taking the easy way out . . . instead of making savings elsewhere. The publication of this report might help us to see how the VHI could make itself more efficient.”
Aviva has also called for the report to be published without delay as part of a process which, it said would lead to “a meaningful and consumer-friendly reform of the health insurance market”.
Aviva said because the VHI was the major player in the market, reform of the sector requires reform of the company.
“If the actions identified in this report were implemented it may result in VHI not having to increase prices by up to 45 per cent for its 1.3 million customers,” a spokesman said.
A department spokesman said the report was received by Minister for Health Mary Harney last September and was also made available to the Health insurance Authority (HIA). He added that as it contained commercially sensitive information there were no plans to publish it.
However, he said the authority had taken its report’s findings into consideration in the context of its market review which it reported to the Minister in October 2010.
“Following consideration of the HIA report the Government increased the proportion of claims covered under the Age Related Tax Credits Stamp Duty Scheme from 50 per cent to 65 per cent.”
The statement added that Ms Harney had raised the issue of claims cost management with the insurer and “notes with satisfaction the steps that the VHI has taken in relation to payments to consultants and to private hospitals which reflect decreases that other sectors have experienced”.
As pressure mounted on the Minister, the department spokesman also denied that Ms Harneys response to the price increases was weak. He said the Minister, who is on holiday and due back at her department on Monday, had “clearly set out the Government actions and its role to . . . protect community rating thereby making health insurance affordable for older people and to protect the interests of customers within the market generally”.
Speaking in Cork last night, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin conceded it “would have been better” if Ms Harney had been in Ireland this week to deal with the various health controversies, including overcrowding in emergency departments.
“Mary Harney was on a private holiday this week and given what has happened she is on her way back. I think obviously it would have been better for herself and for everyone that she would have preferred to have been here this week, but this was not anticipated,” Mr Martin said.