Universal Health Insurance: James Reilly refused to take his medicine

Experts warned against it and the opposition predicted that universal health insurance (UHI) would never get off the ground.

An independent assessment of ‘Health System Funding in Ireland: Universal Health Insurance and the Options’, conducted by health economist Brian Turner on behalf of Fianna Fáil and published in the summer of 2013, concluded that there was “some evidence to suggest that such a move would lead to higher costs for the Irish public without significant improvements in health outcomes”.

Doctors derided the plan. A White Paper outlining the path to UHI presented at the Irish Medical Organisation’s AGM in April 2014 was described by some of our finest minds as “indecipherable gobbledygook”.