do we need health insurance??

M

mukki

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a few of the people the wife works with have never had it, they say that without health insurace you dont have to pay consultations fees and any hospital treatment is still free,

and if you need to stay longer for example after having a baby its not covered under VHI and yet its free if your public


i am sure i am wrong but the only benifit i can see is that you might get a better room if your with VHI/etc
 
If you see the consultant at his public clinic you do not have to pay whether you have VHI or not.
If you choose to see the consultant privately at his private rooms then of course you must pay just as you would pay your doctor
 
If you need to see a consultant, it's generally easier to get a quick referral. E.g. previously waiting list to see a neurologist private was 3 months, public was 6 months. I'm not sure how these compare now. Similarly if you need an MRI, you need to go to one of the public hospitals. If you have health insurance, you can get a quicker appointment in the private sector.

I don't necessarily believe once you're seen there is a difference in the level of care, but for many conditions, early detection is important for long term prognosis.

This doesn't mean that I believe that this is the right way to go, but it's the system we have at the moment - and seems to be going more this direction.
 
I think the main thing that health insurance gives you is choice of care and can get you quicker access to that care. I may have said this before on this forum, but what always sticks in my head was the recent case of a lady living in the west (apologies,I can't recall her name) who was told she needed a scope for a colonic complaint. As she didn't have HI she had to wait nearly 12 months for the scope after which she was diagnosed with cancer & subsequently died. If she had HI she would have had the scope in a matter of weeks and things could have worked out differently for her. Its a disgrace that we need HI to jump waiting lists like this but that seems to be the reality.
 
I'm not so sure - 2 year waiting lists for Colonoscopies in a number of the hospitals. The irishhealth article does not give figures for private but says they can be done in days.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0423/cancer.html
[broken link removed]

The only reason I have health insurance is incase something serious happens - a better room might be a nice benefit, but personally that's not why I have it.
 
I thought the story became famous because she had the guts to go on Joe Duffy and talk openly about how lack of health insurance was a fatal condition for her. I guess that most people in her condition won't go public (for very understandable reasons).
 
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