Re: Bupa leaving Ireland All Fermoy jobs lost
Maybe we could build a TV reality/game show around it?
Maybe we could build a TV reality/game show around it?so how would you choose who goes or stays with vhi ?
If you give me a list of countries where they entered late into a previously monopolistic market with an opportunity to profit excessively from a short-term delay in implementing a mechanism designed to prevent excessive profit taking and market de-stabilisation, then I will be happy to research each of them and let you know whether they've done this before. I would provide the list myself but I don't know of any such country - sorry.
Maybe we could build a TV reality/game show around it?
so how would you choose who goes or stays with vhi ?
List all Irish PHI subscribers older than 60 alphabetically, divide them into 3 groups proportionate to the current market share of the 3 companies and dole them out.
The problem being that Vhi are paying out the cost based on an ambulance transfer when in fact the reality was a taxi. Big argument on Joe Duffy about 9 months ago on the incredible wastage of Vhi with calls from peple who queried the bills the hospitals sent them.and would a taxi transfer not be cheaper than paying for an ambulance, nurse etc..
Is the Australian system that Mary Harney's office is always admiring that the over 65's choose whatever insurance company they want to be with and then the maths in done later. Risk Equalistaion based only on the over 65's and the cost sharing being much more stictly and fairer controlled than the Irish proposal.that idea would be shot down... making people move ! so much for choice and freedom to choose your own insurance company.
Have you any evidence to support this conspiracy theory? eg Have BUPA done this previously in any other country?
nicelives said:The problem being that Vhi are paying out the cost based on an ambulance transfer when in fact the reality was a taxi. Big argument on Joe Duffy about 9 months ago on the incredible wastage of Vhi with calls from peple who queried the bills the hospitals sent them.
BUPA entered a market knowing full well RE would be implemented. It's preposterous to believe that their strategy was based on an assumption that RE wouldn't come in.
Given that, the best or perhaps only sensible strategy would have been to keep trying to defer the introduction of RE and target the youngest members you can. They achieved this. If the market with RE is unprofitable for them, why else would they have entered this market?
Is the 161M a one-off payment with an additonal (smaller) levy each year thereafter? That would not seem excessive in the context of €60M p.a profits.In that context, the proposed levying of €161m from a company making circa €60m per year seems odd to say the least. Frankly this reminds me of Ray Burke's attempts to cap RTE's profits to benefit Century Radio in the early 1990s. And we all know what happened there...
What about those who don't want to move? And don't you have to do this on a regular (e.g. annual) basis? All this meddling with the market really doesn't sound like a good idea. Better to somehow (the $6M question!) make the market more attractive to other service providers who will come in of their own accord.
I don't think it's neccessarily bad, healthcare in my opinion is not a normal good or service, if it were, we would be effectively condemming large numbers of less well off people to death if they happened to get an illness requiring expensive treatment. Whilst competition generally eradicates inefficiencies, in the case of health insurance the only real competition would have to remove all pretences of community rating, in the absence of such an undesireable situation we can't have real competition anyway, hence it might be as well to have a service provider who pumps all their revenue back into the health system.So you think that the lack of competitors is GOOD for people with health insurance?
..the one thing that has always perplexed me about the situation, one would have presumed that the levy would be a percentage of profits - obviously a fixed sum in excess of profits would not make sense. What we really need I suppose is an independent assessment of both BUPA profitability and what the likely RE payments will be on an ongoing basis (call me cynical, but I don't believe the figures being bandied around by BUPA).
The RE transfer is based on cost of claims, not on overall profitability so if two companies had equal market share and one (A) had 70M cost of claims + 30M expenses (total 100M) and the other (B) had cost of claims 90M and 10M expenses (so total 100M) - RE would transfer 10M of claims from company B to company A so that they both had the same cost of claims (80M). Company A then has greater overall costs (110M) than company B (90M) which may make it unprofitable - because of its higher expenses, not because of RE.
This is a bit of a simplification but it gives a reasonable idea of how it operates.
Agree that an independent assessment of BUPA's profitability would be v enlightening - any commentators who have been privy to this info (politicians, judges) seem to agree that their profits have been very large.
But what if a company has a lower claims costs because it's driven better agreements with the medical centres/hospitals etc or if it incentivises it's member to get health checks? What if it takes steps to keep it's claims costs down? Shouldn't this also be recognised?
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surely it's then hospital that called the taxi, as there was no ambulance available to transfer the patients, as they must not have been that ill, and then if the vhi did not pay for it, people would be giving out about that... by using a taxi they are leaving an ambulance free for accidents, real emergencies etc etc....
don't forget the hospitals are not going to be out of pocket, they will want to get the money back from somewhere !
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