The United Left Alliance has criticised Fine Gael’s health policy as a “cynical exercise in deception”.
Conor Mac Liam, health campaigner and Socialist Party/ULA candidate for Carlow Kilkenny, said Fine Gael's response to "our existing disaster of a hybrid healthcare system is to go the whole hog with privatisation”.
Fine Gael has said its plan will eliminate long waiting lists, end the public-private two-tier system and replace it with a universal health insurance system based on "the renowned Dutch model". It says the policy "offers equal access to all".
The claims made about the Dutch system were "false", Mr Mac Liam claimed. "People are desperate for a system that is affordable and reliable. I am horrified at Fine Gael’s attempt to turn the healthcare crisis into an opportunity to line the pockets of private healthcare companies," he said.
"Contrary to Fine Gael claims the Dutch system is a two-tier system with the private healthcare providers offering a level of superior cover for in excess of €3,000 per annum for a single person compared to the basic packages that come in at around €1,200 per annum depending on which of the 60 companies you choose," he said. "You are not fully covered if you have chronic conditions."
He said some 62,000 people downgraded their level of cover last year in the Netherlands “because their personal financial circumstances changed”.
Mr Mac Liam said some €1.2 billion was made in profits by private insurers in the Netherlands in 2009 and the competing firms spent €38 million in advertising.
Mr Mac Liam is the husband of Susie Long, who died of bowel cancer in 2007 after waiting seven months for hospital tests.
Socialist Party MEP and Dublin West candidate Joe Higgins said the alternative to the Fine Gael system was a "single-tiered, democratically run, universal healthcare system funded by progressive taxation”.
Management structures would also be transformed to bring the front-line workers to the heart of the running of the health services.
Asked about the likely cost of its proposed system of universal health care and the implications for taxation, Mr Higgins said this was "obviously closely related to the whole debate on the economic situation".
He said: "What the role of the United Left Alliance is, is to have a general critique of the economic crisis and the IMF-EU package, which we say far from bringing about a recovery will worsen the crisis."
The Socialist Party has proposed increasing taxes on the "super-wealthy" and increases in taxes such as corporation tax in order to bridge the budget deficit.
Richard Boyd Barrett, a candidate for People Before Profit in Dún Laoghaire, said there were already signs that those who had “stoked up” the property bubble in residential property had now shifted to speculation in the area of healthcare, particularly in the areas of care for the elderly.