{"id":323799,"date":"2026-03-01T18:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T18:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323799\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T18:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T18:07:10","slug":"cant-afford-health-insurance-how-to-get-free-treatment-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323799\/","title":{"rendered":"Can\u2019t afford health insurance? How to get free treatment abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Skip the public waiting lists by using a little-known European directive\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"You pay the hospital provider  upfront for your treatment and  then seek a refund from the  HSE. Photo: Getty Images\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ba7ea1ce-d402-47f0-a100-9cf3a43fe499.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">You pay the hospital provider  upfront for your treatment and  then seek a refund from the  HSE. Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It\u2019s been peak season for renewing health insurance, with half the country\u2019s insured adults renewing their cover between January 1 and February 28. But a combination of price hikes by health insurers \u2013 including one from VHI that kicks in today \u2013 and a government levy that will rise to \u20ac517 on April 1 means private medical insurance is increasingly becoming a luxury good for squeezed households.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Dermot Wells, head of health and general insurance at Cornmarket, Ireland&#8217;s largest health insurance broker, estimates that premiums are an average 25pc higher than they were three years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Skip the public waiting lists by using a little-known European directive You pay the hospital provider upfront for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[6188,103,397,8655,396,61,5167,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-323799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-gabrielle-monaghan","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-health-insurance","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-insurance","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}