Medical cards debacle - Behan has spoken for the majority

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen, already facing challenges his recent predecessors only read about in history books, needs a Fianna Fáil revolt like a hole in the head.

However, he should not be surprised that he is facing one. Did he and his inner circle imagine that the proposal to means test medical cards for people over 70s would be accepted without a murmur? Or is it that he did not work through the implications? Or, maybe, he trusted too readily in his Health Minister Mary Harney’s judgment and instincts. Maybe he over-estimated his Tánaiste Mary Coughlan’s ability to suppress and silence the justified anger at this week’s Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting.

Or maybe, as so many critics of the measure inside and outside of Fianna Fáil have said, he and his cabinet are dangerously out of touch with the real world and the concerns so many people feel about how the economic crisis will affect their lives.

Did he really belive that his government could tell a person struggling on a subsistence pension of €240.30 a week — about a third of the average industrial wage — that they were too well off to get a medical card?

If he did, if he really thought this was plausible, we’re all in more trouble than we imagined.

Though there must be a grain of truth in each of those propositions identifying the precise catalyst is irrelevant but what is certain is that by resigning from the party Wicklow deputy Joe Behan’s principled and admirable stand has spoken loudly and clearly for the vast majority of the people in this country.

In recent weeks all sorts of dramatic measures, some with the potential to beggar this country for generations, have been proposed to “maintain confidence” in a bankrupt, corrupted system. The suggestion was that confidence might suffice where substance was absent.

In reality it was yet another smoke-and-daggers Irish solution to another Irish failure. In the days leading up to last Tuesday’s budget we were left in no doubt that our situation is critical and that the Government would not shy away from regrettable but hard decisions.

One of those was the whole demeaning burlesque surrounding the over 70s’ medical cards. The proposal was introduced — just as it was before the 2002 election — without proper consideration. Thresholds were announced, changed and then changed again. Someone had not done their homework. It was embarrassing and undermined confidence greatly.

Great distress was imposed on a section of our community that, in any half-decent, functioning society, should not have to worry about medical bills at all. As it stands the proposal is an indictment of our political class and, in turn, our society.

Before the budget we were led to believe that only the wealthiest of pensioners might face a means test. The ones who still change the car most years and winter in their holiday home in a sunnier place. There was, and is, widespread approval for a measure like that.

But no, our government, by imposing a threshold of €240.30 for a single person — €12,495 a year — and double that for a couple, have cut to the bone, they have cut too deeply.

No matter how Taoiseach Cowen, Tánaiste Coughlan — who looked so out of her depth defending the fiasco in the Dáil — Minister Lenihan or Minister Harney duck and dive about allowances or other payments, this threshold represents failure.

After all the years of swagger and boom, helicopters and runners at Cheltenham, are we reduced to this already? Can we not provide someone living on athreadbare income with a medical card in their old age?

Of the 140,000 people who got a card automatically when they turned 70, only about 15,000 will retain it, while 35,000 will get a GP card and another 70,000 will get a health support payment. There are another 215,000 people over 70 with medical cards whose situation will not change.

No one expected the budget to be anything other than a reality check and no one objects to measures needed to steady the economy but this make-it-up-as-you-go-along stuff is frightening. Especially when you consider that increasing VAT to 21% rather than to 20.5% would have make all the over 70s tomfoolery unnecessary.

The Taoiseach is wrong on this issue and he only compounds his error by refusing to admit it and withdraw the proposal. Savings can be made elsewhere.

Deputy Behan’s resignation has put it up to those in the Dáil who support his position. The choice is simple — hypocrisy or courage.