The VHI has said it is greatly concerned at the proposal in the health strategy to suspend non-emergency hospital treatment for private patients in order to reduce waiting times for public patients.
"This is not workable," said VHI chief executive Mr Vincent Sheridan.
"Private insurers must be in a position to deliver the benefits they contract for and need certainty with regard to the resources available to them and not have these resources subject to events completely outside their control." Mr Sheridan expressed doubts about the strategy's plan to set up a treatment purchase fund to buy private treatment for public patients on lengthy waiting lists.
"The plan . . . appears to be based on the premise that there is surplus capacity within the private hospital sector. Our research indicates that whatever spare capacity exists is widely dispersed geographically and may not be suitable for the most common procedures on the waiting list."
Eastern Regional Health Authority chief executive Mr Donal O'Shea welcomed the strategy which, he said, would enable the authority build immediately on work already done and address issues already identified by the authority as requiring urgent action.
He was pleased with the decision to increase bed numbers. "The ERHA has already identified ways and means by which several hundred additional beds can quickly be brought into operation. These include developments in public hospitals and private hospitals, which have already been negotiated by the authority."
The ERHA has been arranging for public patients to be taken off waiting lists by having them treated in private hospitals at home and abroad.
Mr O'Shea said that with additional funding the authority was in a position to extend significantly the numbers on waiting lists who could be treated privately either in Dublin or abroad.