Medical cards - Eligibility issue must be tackled
The analysis specifically related to medical cards and although the Government's outrageously shameful U-turn on issuing extra cards is hardly news, Labour's deputy leader and spokesperson on health, Liz McManus, broached the issue of eligibility.
An aspect she highlighted was the inequity of the medical card system for low-income families and the automatic qualification for putative millionaires on reaching 70 years of age.
To compare millionaires and low-income families is not quite as outlandish as might first appear. In fact, it exemplifies the not misguided notion that the more somebody has, the more they are entitled to.
It is a total nonsense to suggest that a retired millionaire is entitled to free medical care from the State and a family struggling for its very existence should, and is, denied the same care.
Yet, this is the callous policy pursued by the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats coalition which emanated from the only expansion of the GMS system (medical cards) in the Budget of 2001.
It would appear that what is implied in Liz McManus's criticism is that there should be a means test instead of automatic qualification at this stage of entry to the medical card system.
If that is what she means, then presumably the same argument could be applied to something like child benefit. It is a principle, where the rich can provide for themselves, thus freeing up vital funds for distribution to those who need them, that only the very selfish would reject.
While Ireland is very often described as having a two-tier health system those with medical cards and those with private health insurance that is to ignore the many thousands of low-income households who have neither.
The health system here is inequitable. That money and the capacity to buy private health insurance can eliminate delays is not just a popular belief, it is a fact of life.
As a ploy before the last General Election, the Government promised to increase child benefit by €32 a month, and give 200,000 people on low incomes a medical card.
Although returned to power, the Government shamefully reneged on both promises. Not one extra medical card was issued and child benefit was increased only by €8 a month.
Consequently, there are about 90,000 children living in poverty in this country because of inadequate child benefit or the lack of a medical card, which is directly the fault of the Government.
Poverty, in this instance, is not the inability to buy designer trainers. It is where families cannot afford to buy basic food and clothing or provide healthcare for their children without going into major debt, as defined by the End Child Poverty Coalition.
It is impossible to reconcile the denial of medical cards to such families on the basis of spurious economic arguments, when it was revealed last year that GPs were paid €20 million for treating "ghost patients".
Although Mary Harney may be new to the Health portfolio, she is well aware of the inequities that persist in the medical card scheme, having been a member of the Government that prolonged them.
She has now promised to increase the threshold for eligibility, and this is something that long ago should have been addressed.
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