Call for 3% tax rise to end ‘two-tier’ health system

A HEALTH insurance scheme which provides equal access to quality care for all citizens could be implemented through the equivalent of a 3% increase in income taxes.

Proposals for radical major reform of the delivery of healthcare in Ireland to end the existing “two-tier system” will be revealed in a policy paper to be published by the Adelaide Hospital Society today.

Among its main recommendations is the establishment of a new system ofsocial health insurance which would provide guaranteed equal access to health services for all citizens.

Under its proposals, the Adelaide Hospital Society estimates that a system of universal healthcare would require a single person earning a €25,000 salary to pay an extra €20 per month.

The society claims GP services, medicines and acute hospital care and treatment could be provided free to all citizens for the same amount of money that is currently spent on health.

It is proposing that people would contribute to a new social health insurance fund according to their means instead of through taxation.

The society believes the healthcare should be provided with the underlying principle of “access on the basis of clinical need — payment on the basis of income or wealth”.

The policy paper will call for the establishment of a new single social health insurance fund on a not-for-profit basis to finance a range of general health services including free GP care and medicines and free acute hospital care and treatment.

The Adelaide Hospital Society has also recommended the establishment of a Social Health Insurance Authority to oversee delivery of such a scheme.

The report called Effective Foundations for the Financing and Organisation of Social Health Insurance in Ireland will be launched at a national conference entitled Financing Universal Healthcare in Ireland in Dublin this morning.

The 65-page report, commissioned by the Adelaide Hospital Society, was produced by the Centre of Health Policy and Management at Trinity College Dublin.

It criticises the current system of funding healthcare as “unfair, ineffective, grossly inefficient, perverse and giving poor value”.

The report points out the Government has tried and failed to improve healthcare over the past decade through increased taxation, greater use of privatised healthcare and more centralised administration.

It also warns the significant changes it is proposing cannot be introduced without “vision and bold leadership”.