Minister Reilly welcomes EU approval of new permanent Risk Equalisation Scheme in the Irish Private Health Insurance Market

Dr James Reilly TD, Minister for Health today (20th February 2013) welcomed the official announcement by the EU Commission approving the new Permanent Risk Equalisation Scheme in the Irish Private Health Insurance Market. The new scheme came into effect from 1 January, 2013 when it replaced the previous Interim Scheme and fulfils the Programme for Government commitment to put a permanent scheme of Risk Equalisation in place.

The maintenance of a healthy and functioning private health insurance market is an essential step to facilitate the transition to a market-based Universal Health Insurance system, and the new Risk Equalisation Scheme is a crucial step towards achieving this. The scheme helps to keep private health insurance affordable for older and less healthy people.

Minister Reilly said “This new scheme puts in place, for the first time in this country, a permanent and robust system of Risk Equalisation. The scheme is budget neutral and has no overall impact on the costs in the market. It supports competition by encouraging insurers to move their focus away from avoiding older, less healthy customers and towards innovation, achieving greater efficiencies and improved customer service. This is the kind of competition which is best for consumers. I am pleased that the Commission continues to support the Government’s efforts to maintain community rating in the Irish health insurance market ”