This Government is pro-competition…
Those words, or words to this effect uttered by Mary Harney during the BUPA Ireland withdrawal saga seem pretty hollow with the news that legislation is being rushed through the Oireachtas to end the three year exemption from risk equalisation for new entrants to the health insurance market.
Putting aside the entire “risk equalisation” debate, you have to how the Government can even pretend to be pro-competition with this move. How exactly is the market going to be in any way attractive to potential entrants when they’re burdened with huge payment costs on their business from day one, before they’ve even bagged their first customer?
Surely re-working the legislation to stop new owners of existing companies/customer bases from taking advantage of the exemption would be enough to stop the Quinn Group but keep the market open for others?
Maybe that’s what they’re doing, or maybe there’s more to it than is apparent at present, but so far it doesn’t look as though that’s the case.
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