Basic Health Insurance

Just to clarify: when you say basic, are you asking about the lowest level of cover available or do you mean the standard cover that most people have?
 
According to the HIA website, the cheapest plan on the market is Quinn's Essential Starter at €380. This covers you for a semi private room in public hospitals.

The cheapest from VHI is First Plan Starter at €450 and the cheapest from Aviva is Access Plan Level 1 at €506. However, Aviva's plan has better much maternity cover and the hospital cover covers a private room in public hospitals (thought access to a private room isn't guaranteed and it won't make any difference to how quckly you're treated).

You can compare the three side by side on the HIA website here - [broken link removed].
 
In my opinion if you're going to pay for private healthcare, for the marginal difference in price, I would pay the little bit extra for the private room in the public hospital. So in this instance I would say Aviva's plan looks good. It amounts to a difference of about €10.50 per month. What's also worth noting is that you can get this level of cover free for children also with Aviva on the Level 1 Plan.
Patrick
 
pj111 said:
In my opinion if you're going to pay for private healthcare, for the marginal difference in price, I would pay the little bit extra for the private room in the public hospital. So in this instance I would say Aviva's plan looks good. It amounts to a difference of about €10.50 per month. What's also worth noting is that you can get this level of cover free for children also with Aviva on the Level 1 Plan.
Patrick
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I'll have to disagree with you on this one. Private rooms in large public hospitals are less common than semi private rooms. So the odds of being able to avail of a private room are smaller, even though you've paid the higher price. The exception to this would be smaller general public hospitals, where only private rooms are available, but these are usually fully covered by even the most basic plans, even if the blurb says that only semi private rooms are covered.

If someone with a basic package wanted to increase their coverage, I'd recommend going for a plan that covers a semi private room in the larger private hospitals as well (e.g. the Bon Secours Hospitals, St Vincent's Private, Hermitage or Galway Clinic and so on). Private hospitals tend to have shorter waiting times than going as a private patient in a public hospital, and the benefit of the the larger private hospitals is they'd have a wider range of services than the smaller private hospitals.

With the exception of maternity, being admitted to a semi private room (in public or private hospitals) makes no difference to how quickly you're admitted or the treatment you get. I know some people have a preference for a private room, but given that's it not guaranteed, I don't think it's worth the extra premium.
 
Understood and indeed my preference would also be for semi private room in private hospital, (or indeed greater if I could afford it!), but Cork had already stated that the cover he was interested in was for public hospitals only.

Therefore the debate, as I interpeted it, was about whether to go for a semi private in a public, or a private in a public.

It was on this basis that I would suggest that an extra €10.50 per month could well prove to be worth it at some point in the future. Of course I would agree with you that there is no guarantee of a private bed, but this is only down to the availability of such a bed.

Hence I would rather pay €10 more per month to know that I am entitled to one if one is available, rather than not be entitled to one, should it be available.

Patrick
 
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