Madam, – Our method of funding private healthcare is well and truly broken. Many subscribers do not know what they are paying for, those subscribing to even the most costly options need the public system if they are very ill, there is no sustainable model of cover for chronic conditions, hospitals and doctors are presented with a range of perverse incentives and virtually nobody is happy.
However, there is hope. There are many good things about healthcare in Ireland which can be built on: hardworking and highly trained staff, much improved infrastructure and a considerable budget base. Change is required – urgently. Our forthcoming general election offers an opportunity to do things better. The Opposition parties (together, I would say, with over 80 per cent of the population) want an end to the two-tier system and there is a growing momentum for a shift to a universal insurance system.
Because of the state of our public finances and the way we have got into the mess we are in, there is a public mood for change in how we are governed. It is time to ditch our current discredited method of financing healthcare and move to a system underpinned by a new set of values, foremost of which must be provision of health care on the basis of clinical need not ability to pay. – Yours, etc,