Healthcare reform - Fairness is the key

The Adelaide Hospital Society commissioned the Centre of Health Policy and Management at Trinity College Dublin, to report on how a single-tiered health system could be developed with equal access for all.

The report, suggesting effective foundations for social insurance, proposes that a system of equal access for all could be developed in Ireland with an extra 3% increase in payroll taxes, taking efficiencies into account.

A single person on €25,000 a year would pay an extra €20 a month for free access, at the point of care, to doctors, hospital services and drugs. The proposal would envisage a single social health insurance fund, separate from Exchequer funds, to buy services for patients from the public and private sector.