In a statement on the government’s new push of private health insurance Adrienne Wallace People Before Profit candidate in the upcoming Carlow-Kilkenny by-election said, “The reliance on the private sector to provide public goods and the privatisation myth has got to end. Privatisation costs the general public more. The private health insurance model serves the people at the top, the middle men, and the private health insurance companies only. What we need is a properly funded and working public health service for all and it can be done”
“A report published in 2010 called Universal Health Insurance: The Way Forward for Irish Healthcare prepared for the Adelaide Hospital Society purposed a universal health care system where people would get care regardless of their standing or financial circumstances. Drawing on best international practice, it recommended an alternative to the two-tier system in operation right now. Under the recommendations we could have a Social Health Insurance model which would provide health services for all. Their research is to be commended and provides costed alternatives to the current set-up. Under their model each citizen would be provided with GP care, medicines, and hospital care equally.”
“The whole thing is set upon the principle of social solidarity. In a Social Health Insurance funded health system the basic underlying principle which applies is ‘access on the basis of clinical need, payment on the basis of income or wealth’. The system proposed involves all citizens being covered and having equal access to care and treatment to a common ‘basket’ or set of health services.”
“I would like to know the principle on which the Fine Gael Minister is basing his private health insurance model on? I think it’s a legitimate question and I think it’s one that warrants an answer. Because looking at the model, the only parties to gain from this are the private insurers – the rest of us are to be thrown to the wolves!”
“The direction that this government and Minister Varadkar are going is driven by a political ideology which sees privatisation and the market as the way forward. This ideology is what brought us the massive problems over the past couple of years. It was private banks and private speculators and developers who brought ruin. And it was us the people of this state who had to bail the whole lot out in the end. We are paying for these private outfits but we get nothing in return only more bills. There are real alternatives once we pursue the public interests. It’s time to put people before profit and have real services in this country.”
People Before Profit
