Health Insurance Health Insurance for kids needed?

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Ndiddy

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With Free GP until 12 and most paediatric services on a public basis, is there any point in paying for insurance for the kids? Are there any policies that cover just the non day-to-day so you aren't paying for something you already get for free?
 
My experience is that public healthcare is fine if your kids are healthy, or if they manage to get into a well organised area. For other things, you get told there's a problem, and that it should be dealt with, then you get put on a 4 year waiting list. That's when you go private. We've been lucky enough that anything we went private for turned out to be no big deal, so all we had to do was pay for one consultants visit (not covered by the excess on the health insurance) but I would be very reluctant to do without health insurance.

Earlier this year my husband was dealing with debilitating pain, partly due to surgery (which was carried out on the public system) and the response he got was that it wasn't urgent, and to keep taking painkillers (heavy duty addiction causing painkillers) and come back in 6 months. The disregard for quality of life was breathtaking.
 
Ndiddy said:
With Free GP until 12 and most paediatric services on a public basis, is there any point in paying for insurance for the kids?
Click to expand...

AFAIK, the free GP care for under 6's has not yet been introduced, let alone free GP care for under 12's!! I wouldn't hold my breath.
 
If you don't have a full medical card, there is a nightly charge for children who are admitted to any public hospital. 75 per night x 10. Maximum
amount 750 per year. So, health insurance covers this charge, at a fraction of the cost.

There are no private children's hospitals in Ireland, but some public hospitals have private childrens clinics and wards, also some private hospitals
offer a range of childrens surgery. The hi-tech hospitals Blackrock Clinic, Mater Private and Beacon offer a list of childrens surgery covered on plans that include hi-tech cover for children aged 3+.

So, there are plenty of positive reasons for having health insurance for children. The main reason is usually to have all the above extra options available if the need arises, when the only option on offer from the public system is maybe to wait 2-3 years for surgery.

NOTE; Temple Street and Crumlin Childrens hospitals deal with children upto the eve of their 16th birthday, unless they have been attending for
years with a particular condition, special exemptions apply in those cases. So, from age 16 to 18 years, they would attend adult hospitals. The full
range of public, private and hi-tech hospitals would apply at that age - depending on the cover included on their health insurance plan.

There are plans that just cover hospital cover without the day to day cover if preferred.
Couple of examples as follows;
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1. Laya Simply Connect; price per child 239pa; public,private and hi-tech hospital cover, + day to day cover, capped at 300pa.
2. VHI One Plan Choice; price per child 258pa; public, private and hi-tech hospital cover, limited day to day cover.

The plan including day to day cover is actually cheaper than the plan with just hospital cover.

Depending on your renewal date, there may be special offers in the coming months. VHI's half price offers on a range of plans ended from 1 Nov
2015.

Snowyb
 
I'm paraphrasing info from another parent on another forum:

781 children are waiting to be seen by a cardiologist in temple street, over 125 of those have been waiting more than 18 months. 600 are waiting to be seen in Tallaght hospital. ENT waiting lists are a shambles as are dermatology. One child needed surgery nothing major but he was in a lot of pain temple street said 18 mths before he got an appointment so had to go private in the end. Another child has been on waiting list for ENT for 2.5 years and still no sign of appointment. Getting a private apt with Paeds Dermatology is like asking for a kidney donation. Someone else said they are currently into 16 months of a 2 year wait for opthamology in Temple Street.

The latest trick is to write to you to ask do you still want to be on a waiting list and they give you a ridiculously short time to reply meaning some people definition fall off their lists.

I've been lucky, I have 3 kids and any treatment they have needed has been easy enough to obtain, or after a consultation it turns out that no further action is needed. Because of stories like this I would be slow to drop cover for them.
 
Thanks for all the replies, one more thing, if a child drops cover and then wants to start again, is there a waiting period?
 
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