15,300 Discretionary medical cards to be restored at a cost of 13 million
The Government has decided it will return discretionary medical cards taken off those with serious medical conditions over the past three years.
The Cabinet has approved a plan which does not require a change in the law and can see cards returned in a matter of weeks.
A statement from the Department of Health said the Government could not stand over the removal of cards from those with an acute medical condition, or a lifelong condition, including a disability.
The statement said it is anticipated that about 15,300 cards will be restored to people with serious medical conditions as part of this process.
The decision to return cards without changing the law follows intensive negotiations with the Attorney General.
Today’s announcement covers cards withdrawn between July 1, 2011, and May 31, 2014. in a statement, the Department of Health said the review of the cards “produced unintended consequences” and that “much anecdotal evidence” revealed that those with a lifelong condition lost their cards.
However, he said that all decisions were made legally, and there would be no refund for medical expenses incurred in the intervening time, saying “there is no basis for a refund” and the Government had no plans to offer one.
The HSE has established an expert panel to consider the “broader issue” on how medical cards should be issued, and what makes an applicant eligible.
Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, the Minister for Health, James Reilly, said that responsibility for the “unintended consequence” was shared between the last Government, which decided to centralise medical card applications, and the current Government, which implemented it.
The Taoiseach also apologised in the Dáil for the “very many families being severely inconvenienced which] really did cause a great deal of stress for people.”
Michael Noonan to persist in push for Irish banking debt relief
Minister for Finance rules out any link between corporate tax rate and debt relief
Speaking in Brussels yesterday, a senior euro zone official said retroactivity was not envisaged in the scope of the European Stability Mechanism’s direct bank recapitalisation instrument being finalised.
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan will continue to press the case for direct recapitalisation of Bank of Irelandand AIB when euro zone finance minister meet later this week in Luxembourg, despite receding political support in the euro zone.
“The rules as we have adopted them are forward-looking, so I see no case for retroactive application,” he said.
The powerful euro working groupof senior officials based in Brussels signed off on the framework for direct bank recapitalisation last week, following agreement by finance ministers a year ago. While the provision to consider retroactive direct bank recapitalisation on a “case-by-case basis” is understood to remain, senior EU sources said that political support for Ireland’s claim for debt relief through the fund was negligible.
“The idea that Ireland’s bank debt would be put on the balance sheet of the ESM is very unlikely,” said one EU source. “The whole point of the ESM direct bank recap facility is that it is used in an emergency, if a bank is in trouble, and only when other categories of creditors have been bailed-in.”
The Department of Finance stressed this evening the agreement “keeps open the possibility to apply to the European Stability Mechanism for a retrospective direct recapitalisation of the Irish banks, should we wish to avail of it.”
Any decision to activate the ESM’s direct bank recapitalisation mechanism must be made with the support of every country in the euro zone. In addition, up to six countries, including Germany, must vote on the direct bank recapitalisation instrument by the year’s end.
The ESM is the only “mutualised” fund in the euro zone, and there is a strong reluctance from members to use the fund to bail-out individual states. The renewed focus on the ESM direct recapitalisation instrument comes less than a week after the European Commission launched an investigation into the tax deal offered by Ireland to computer giant Apple.
The issue is also expected to be raised by German MPs visiting Dublin this week. Speaking in Limerick today, Mr Noonan ruled out any link between Ireland’s corporate tax rate and further debt relief.
“That link has never been made to me and I am a few years going out to Europe, ” he said.
The VHI records €65 million surplus for last year 2013
Company signs four-year reinsurance deal with Berkshire Hathaway VHI chief executive John O’Dwyer (above) “We recorded a strong surplus on our consolidated business, improved our solvency position and maintained a low operating cost ratio.”
The country’s largest health insurer, the VHI, recorded a financial surplus of €65 million last year.
The State-owned company also said it had finalised a four-year reinsurance agreement with Berkshire Hathaway, the insurance giant headed by investor Warren Buffett.
The company said it had made an application for its long-planned authorisation by the Central Bank of Ireland and that it would not need support from the exchequer to achieve the required solvency levels.
VHI said its surplus for 2013 represented a margin of 4.4 per cent and was an improvement on the surplus of €54.3 million, or 3.8 per cent margin, achieved in the previous year.
It said that at the end of 2013 VHI Healthcare had free cash reserves of more than €389 million, bringing the company’s solvency level to 156 per cent, compared with 108 per cent in 2012 and 100 per cent in 2011.
Special investigation unit
VHI said its special investigations unit – which examines claim of overcharging and erroneous payments to hospitals and doctors – and its medical review process had recovered €14.8 million.
VHI chief executive John O’Dwyer said: “VHI Healthcare continued to perform well in a challenging market in 2013. We recorded a strong surplus on our consolidated business, improved our solvency position and maintained a low operating cost ratio. The improved financial results have been achieved on the back of a number of key initiatives taken in 2012 and 2013 which will continue to bear fruit in future years.”
He said a key business priority in 2013 was preparing to submit an application for authorisation by the Central Bank. He said a significant element of this submission was the inclusion of a long-term, sustainable business plan that would secure the viability of the business.
Warren Buffett deal with VHI will save Irish taxpayers some €200m
BILLIONAIRE’S LIFELINE WILL ALSO REDUCE PRESSURE FOR FURTHER PREMIUM HIKES
The current relentless pressure on health insurance customers is expected to ease after the country’s largest health insurer extended a lucrative deal with billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
The VHI’s new four-year contract with a company headed by Mr Buffett is also set to save millions of euro for taxpayers.
His Berkshire Hathaway holding company has signed an agreement to take over some of the risks of VHI, in what is known as a re-insurance deal.
Head of the VHI John O’Dwyer said the deal is set to save taxpayers from having to pump up to €200m into the company and will help keep down premium hikes for the insurer’s one million-plus customers.
“This is a good deal for VHI customers and it is a good deal for the Exchequer,” Mr O’Dwyer said.
Families have faced huge costs in order to keep up health insurance payments in recent years, as premiums have doubled since the start of the economic downturn.
The spiralling costs have forced as many as 266,000 people to completely drop out of the market for private health insurance, and has pushed many others to downgrade their cover.
The most recent VHI hike was announced in January and meant families would have to pay an extra €250 a year for cover.
The annual cost of some of its plans has shot up by more than €1,000 during the past few years.
Insurers have blamed cost pressures that forced them to announce multiple rises in the past five years.
But Mr O’Dwyer said the focus of the VHI would be to continue to keep premium rises to a minimum, by keeping claims costs down.
“We remain focused on keeping prices as low as is feasible, and on delivering back savings through offers and promotions where possible,” he said.
The VHI boss said the four-year deal with Warren Buffett’s company would put the insurer on a sound footing and take away some of the pressure that has meant multiple premium rises in the past couple of years.
He also pointed out that in the past two years the VHI has had the lowest premium increases in the market.
However, it did increase premiums by an average of 3pc in March this year, although some plans went up by more. And last year the average premium went up by 6pc.
The deal with Mr Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway also removes the threat of fines from the EU over the failure of the VHI to put sufficient reserves in place up to now.
Mr Buffett (83) is estimated by ‘Forbes’ magazine to be worth $58bn (€43bn), and is renowned as the world’s most savvy investor.
It is seen as a major achievement to get the company he leads to commit to a four-year deal with the VHI.
The new deal extends a previous one-year deal, which had surprised market watchers.
Mr Buffett is the chairman, CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway.
The agreement with one of the richest men in the world involves his Berkshire Hathaway firm insuring some of VHI’s claims.
Effectively, large chunks of the VHI’s health insurance claims are being laid-off with Berkshire, though customers will still deal with VHI.
Mr O’Dwyer said the deal would save taxpayers between €150m and €200m. This was the amount of money the Exchequer was expected to have to pump into the VHI to boost its reserves.
EU officials are pressing the Government to have VHI regulated by the Central Bank, but its reserves have been too low up to now.
VHI would have needed between €150m and €200m put into it from taxpayer if it had not been for the re-insurance deal with Mr Buffett’s company.
It is understood it will cost the VHI around €20m a year in fees to cover the cost of the re-insurance arrangement with Berkshire Hathaway.
Mr O’Dwyer said: “This is a major vote of confidence in the VHI from a highly respected company.”
News of the re-insurance deal, that runs up to 2017, came as the VHI said it made profits of €65m last year, up from €54.3m in 2013.
The semi-state company now has reserves of €389m which should mean the Central Bank will approve it to be regulated as a standalone entity, without needing to fall back on a State guarantee.
An application to be regulated by the Central Bank was submitted last month. VHI missed at least seven deadlines to meet the solvency targets it needs to be regulated on the same footing as its competitors GloHealth, Aviva and Laya, an insurance industry executive said.
The European Court of Justice has made several findings against the State due to the failure to bring VHI under the regulation.
The court ruled against the State in September 2011, requiring that VHI be regulated in a similar fashion to all the other non-life insurers.
It also noted that “discriminatory” structures were in place in the Irish health insurance market.
Titan the Earth like moon smells like gasoline and farts
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, has unusually Earth-like qualities and hence has interested scientists for YEARS.
Before the arrival of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, since Titan is shrouded in a thick golden haze of photochemical smog that obscured its surface, it was difficult to study. Observations gathered by this instrument have now transformed investigations of this curious moon, and now a novel set of laboratory experiments has teased out even more information.
A team of NASA scientists has got tantalizingly close to recreating an unknown material discovered in Titan’s hazy atmosphere, furthering our knowledge of its composition, using Cassini data.
This unidentified material was detected using Cassini’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer which collects spectral data in far-infrared regions. The signature of this material suggested that it was composed of several different ingredients, but what precisely these were remained a mystery.
In order to figure out the possible constituents, scientists used a trial and error method of combining different mixtures of gases in a chamber and seeing what came out. The team knew that if they could get the concoction right, then under the correct conditions it should be possible to recreate the unknown material. Although this may sound relatively simple, given the number of possible combinations this was no mean feat.
The team started off their experiments by combining the two most abundant gases in Titan’s atmosphere, nitrogen and methane, but the resulting mixtures never matched up with the signature picked up by Cassini. So the team experimented by throwing something else into the mix; aromatic hydrocarbons. These are hydrocarbons that contain one or more benzene ring. Since these are partly responsible for Titan’s burnt orange color this seemed logical.
The researchers began with the simplest aromatic hydrocarbon, benzene, which has been previously detected in Titan’s atmosphere and then worked their way through a list of closely related aromatic compounds.
They discovered the best spectral match to the Cassini data when they added aromatic hydrocarbons containing nitrogen, which are part of a subgroup known as polycyclic aromatic nitrogen heterocycles. These are polycyclic aromatic (contain more than 1 aromatic ring) hydrocarbons where carbon atoms have been replaced by nitrogen.
“Now we can say that this material has a strong aromatic character, which helps us understand more about the complex mixture of molecules that makes up Titan’s haze,” said planetary scientist Melissa Trainer in a news-release.
Although the spectral signatures were not identical when the team aligned them, they were strikingly similar which suggested that the scientists were very close to the right combination.
“This is the closest anyone has come, to our knowledge, to recreating with lab experiments this particular feature seen in the Cassini data,” said co-lead author of the study Joshua Sebree.
The team will now continue to play with the experimental conditions in order to hopefully yield a better fit to the Cassini signature.
“With the combination of laboratory experiments and Cassini data, we gain an understanding of just how complex and wondrous this Earth-like moon really is,?
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