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Amendment of section 8 of Principal Act
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4. Section 8 of the Principal Act is amended—
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(a) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (3):
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“(3) For the purposes of this Act, the Minister may prescribe the maximum waiting periods for eligibility for services or payments, or both, under a health insurance contract which a registered undertaking may impose in respect of the person effecting the contract or his or her dependents including, but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, in respect of a person who—
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(a) is of or under a prescribed age,
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(b) is of or over a prescribed age,
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(c) is suffering from a medical condition when the contract is effected,
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(d) effects a health insurance contract in the State without previously having effected a health insurance contract in the State,
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(e) effects a health insurance contract with the undertaking having previously effected a health insurance contract with that undertaking whether in respect of the same or different services or payments, or both, or
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(f) effects a health insurance contract with the undertaking having previously effected a health insurance contract with another registered undertaking whether in respect of the same or different services or payments, or both.”,
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(b) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (5):
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“(5) Where a health insurance contract (‘the first-mentioned contract’) effected with a registered undertaking (including such undertaking which is a restricted membership undertaking) ceases to be in force and a person who was a party to or named in that contract effects, within such period after that cesser as may be prescribed, another health insurance contract with a registered undertaking (‘the second-mentioned contract’), then insofar as the second-mentioned contract is in respect of such services or payments, or both, as would have been provided or payable, as appropriate, under the first-mentioned contract—
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(a) the waiting period for eligibility for the service or the payment, or both, under the second-mentioned contract to—
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(i) the person, or
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(ii) any other person who is named in the contract and was also a party to or named in the first-mentioned contract,
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shall not be any longer than it would have been if the second-mentioned contract had been effected at the time the first-mentioned contract had been effected, and
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(b) there shall be deemed to be expired so much of that waiting period as is equal to so much of the like period under the first-mentioned contract as had expired at the time of the cesser aforesaid.”,
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and
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(c) by the deletion of subsection (6).
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