Madam, - The new "doctor-only" medical cards are an illusion. Already anyone who works for 20 hours a week on the minimum wage doesn't qualify for a regular card. Increasing such a low theshold by 25 per cent is still going to leave anyone working 25 hours a week ineligible.
So who does Mary Harney expect to suddenly be eligible for these doctor-only cards? I don't believe there will be 200,000 such people in the country.
The derisory income threshold for medical cards has left many vulnerable people without recourse to free primary care.
The over-70s' free medical card was yet another costly mistake in this Government's handling of the health service. A much fairer use of public money would have been to bring the income threshold for qualifying for a medical card up to a level that includes people working full-time on low wages and those on modest pensions.
There was and still is great scope for this, as the present GMS contract does not have to be renegotiated until more than 39 per cent of the population is eligible.
Over the ast 15 years we have seen the proportion of the population covered by medical cards fall from approximately 36 per cent to about 27 per cent (and this figure includes many very well-off people by virtue of the over-70s deal).
At a time when the Government has more money than ever to provide public services it seems illogical that fewer people qualify for free healthcare than when our economy was on its knees and cutbacks were the order of the day. - Yours, etc,
Dr PHILIP MURPHY, Bundoran, Co Donegal.