Percentage of medical card holders falling

THE percentage of the population who have medical cards has dropped over the past decade.

The Department of Health yesterday released figures showing the number of individual medical card holders had increased — but those figures hid the overall pattern.

Data showed that there are 1,280,510 medical card holders. At first glance, this compares favourably to the situation in 1998, when there were 1,183,554 holders. But wider examination of population data shows the percentage of card holders is actually falling.