Serious questions must now be asked about the bona fides of Bupa. When the health insurer announced in December it was to withdraw from the Irish market, its 450,000 members and other interested parties had little option but to take the statement at face value. Bupa claimed then that its Irish business was no longer viable following the loss of its court challenge to risk equalisation.
This is the mechanism that is intended to smooth out variations in the age profile of health insurers' memberships and thus facilitate the requirement that all members of a particular insurer pay the same fees regardless of age or medical history. Bupa's preponderance of young members means that significant sums are now due to its main competitor, the state-owned VHI. The second biggest player in the market claimed paying them would bankrupt it. Hence the decision, apparently taken with great reluctance, to exit the market.
Bupa was at pains to deny that it was engaged in brinkmanship with the Government and said that its decision was not reversible, although it stopped short of making its 300 staff redundant. Within a matter of days, Bupa appeared to soften its line, saying it would consider any fresh proposals from the Government.
The revelation that Bupa has now rebuffed an approach from a rival insurer Axa to take over its Irish business can only strengthen suspicion that the group is engaged in a very high stakes game of bluff with the Government. Axa has presumably done its homework and its approach casts serious doubt over Bupa's assertion that it cannot run a profitable health insurance operation within the strictures of risk equalisation and community rating.
Bupa's curt dismissal of Axa's approach only adds to this impression. It defies commercial logic that you would not talk to someone who is prepared to buy a business that you have decided to close down. Bupa has little to lose. Indeed, nothing could provide greater vindication than for it to allow one of its rivals to take a look at its books and then reach the same conclusion as it has regarding the viability of the business. Instead, it is now talking of re-entering the market.
If, as now increasingly appears to be the case, Bupa has been less than straightforward in its dealings with both the State and its customers, then it is a matter of great seriousness. Bupa is as entitled as any other commercial concern to fight its corner - although it should be remembered that Bupa is a not-for-profit provident society. But there is a point beyond which it cannot go, and the bar in this respect is set very high for organisations engaged in something as fundamental to people's lives and the greater good as health insurance.
Scaremongering amongst its 450,000 members to exert pressure on the Government is not acceptable behaviour. If Bupa has crossed this line, then those responsible must be held to account.