Nine out of 10 of us believe we should spend more on health. Three-quarters of us would sacrifice tax cuts to fund health spending.
Despite the urgency about health spending that surveys reveal, there remains bewilderment about how recent health spending increases have failed to deliver the kind of health system other states take for granted.
How much do we spend on health?
This year the Government plans to spend more than £5 billion on health, more than twice the £2.4 billion spent in 1996.
There is no official estimate of what proportion of national income health spending will consume this year.
Calculations using the latest Department of Finance forecasts for national income, which predate September 11th, suggest that public health spending will account this year for 5.7 per cent of GDP and 6.9 per cent of GNP (the more realistic measure of Irish national income, which excludes multinationals' profits).
Total health spending, including individuals' payments for drugs and doctors' visits, will come to nearly 7 per cent of GDP and more than 8 per cent of GNP.
If growth is slower than forecast by the Department, as seems inevitable, the percentage of income consumed by health will be higher.
How does our health spending compare with other states?
In 1998, the last year for which the OECD provides complete international comparisons, the Republic spent below the EU average on health.
Ireland spent less as a proportion of GDP than any of the other state whose healthcare was described in States of Health this week (see graph).
However, that is an outdated picture.
Ireland has increased health spending proportionately much more than other states over the past three years.
The consequence is that, this year, Irish total health spending at more than 8 per cent of GNP (also included in the graph) will exceed the EU average.
Irish public health spending per capita has exceeded Britain's since 1999.
If we are now spending above the EU average on health, why continue to increase health spending?
Because "under-investment has been endemic in our health system", as the secretary-general of the Department of Health, Mr Michael Kelly, told the special Cabinet meeting on health in Ballymascanlon, Co Louth, last May.
Decades of neglect are apparent in the graph showing how Irish public health spending only last year attained the EU per capita average.
Many years of under-spending have created a massive deficiency in infrastructure (beds, clinics, hospitals, equipment); in trained personnel (doctors, nurses, therapists); and in simple health.
Neglected generations of people are now sicker and needier than they should be.
Our life expectancy, while rising, has fallen further behind the EU average.
These deficiencies extend to social services too, administered by the health boards and coming from the health budget.
How much more do we need to spend?
A further £6 billion in capital investment, on top of the £2 billion in the national development plan, Mr Kelly told the Cabinet.
Day to day or current spending on health needs to rise from £5 billion this year to £7 billion annually, he said.
If spending rose that much overnight, Ireland's total health spending would be comparable to Germany's at over 10 per cent of GNP.
But that doesn't mean we would have the German standard of health service.
We would still have to make up for the years of neglect.
We could afford it, if we were prepared to pay for it.
Ireland's GNP per capita is now very close to the income of Germans.
Of course, if health spending reached Mr Kelly's target more gradually as national income rose, it would account for a lower proportion of national income.
Where has all the money gone?
Much so-called health spending is in fact much-needed social spending.
Most extra spending has gone not to reducing hospital waiting lists but to a wide range of competing areas of social need: the homeless, the addicted, children at risk, the intellectually and physically disabled, the elderly.
Of increased spending since 1996, 65 per cent went to paying salaries. Employment in the health( and social) service has risen from under 70,000 to 80,000.
In the last year alone 1,700 extra nurses have been employed. Of the remaining £914 million available for service development, over half went to community services.
Primary care received 20 per cent and the acute hospitals received only 26 per cent or some £240 million.
What could more money buy? The Department of Health wants:
4,700 beds for the elderly;
500 beds for people on waiting lists;
4,800 beds in acute hospitals;
1,500 nurses per year ;
175 speech, occupational and physiotherapists;
more doctors/care attendants;
more services for the mentally ill;
more social services.
Why have the numbers of administrators gone up faster than doctors and nurses?
On paper it seems there are twice as many administrators as doctors.
This is a red herring. The Department of Health's personnel census defines as administrators childcare workers, community welfare officers, workshop managers, librarians, telephonists, computer operators, medical records staff, outpatients' receptionists and consultants' secretaries.
In 1999 there were 700 middle managers - fewer than 1 per 100 staff - and 120 senior managers up to CEO level, of whom a quarter were in community care.
How will the slump after September 11th affect health spending?
That's a simple societal choice. In the good years we chose lower taxes, foreign holidays, second homes and new cars.
The British government may increase taxes to fund public services.
The ESRI in its medium-term review has pointed out that this is an option for us too.