As per their press release BUPA Ireland Ltd. has announced that as and from December 14th 2006, they will begin to pull out of the Irish market. They cite the Risk Equalisation Scheme as the reason why they have had to withdraw. It was costing the company over €1million every week, because of the measures imposed by the Irish Government. The move is expected to result in the loss of around 300 jobs, most of them in Fermoy, Co Cork.
The company claimed the move would force it to hand over €161m to its rival over three years, even though its profits for the period would be just €64m.
Minister for Health Mary Harney has issued a statement saying the Government regrets the latest development and believes health insurance should be available to people of all ages without price discrimination based on risk characteristics.
So what does it mean, now Ireland only has one private Health Insurance body, namely the semistate organisation VHI. Which results in a lack of further competition ? Is it just business at the end of the day or was it a silly mistake by the Irish government to force their hand ?
More about this can be found [here]
[...] FCI says its 13,500 (well now it will be 13,260) employees are committed to providing customers with high-quality, innovative products for a wide range of consumer and industrial applications. The plant is due to close up before the end of 2008, but 20 staff members will remain in customer support roles. Bandon has been having a bad time lately, this comes only a few months after BUPA Ireland have come out and said that they are removing operations from Ireland. [...]
[...] So now we can rest easy with the fact that there will be competition in the Irish Private Health Insurance Market. Finally we have some good news to bring to our readers ! Tagged:BUPA, cork, eirjobs.com, FERMOY, health insurance, ireland, irishblogs, quinn group [...]
[...] has opened (sadly the website isn’t ;)), after purchasing the business from BUPA Ireland earlier this year. Seán Quinn (Chairman of the Quinn Group) has promised that he intends to bring [...]
[...] December ourselves and other people in Ireland [1] worried about the future, so now we can rest easy with the fact [...]