Madam, - Perhaps someone can explain community rating to me? Suppose I am young and healthy. I know the public health service is a shambles but my risk of serious illness is low (and as a young, vigorous man I feel positively immortal).
So I don't bother with health insurance for many happy years until, alas, I start to feel the shadow of mortality. At this point, according to community rating, I can buy health insurance at the same price my younger self baulked at - a great deal for the older me! Unless health insurance is mandatory from a young age, community rating, a concept that purports to aim at social equity, seems pretty unfair.
- Yours, etc,
EAMON COSTELLO, Donabate, Co Dublin.