Who Pays For Our Hospitals?

agrostar

Hey there not sure if this is the correct place to post this just i was thinking and now im ready for a rant:rolleyes::rolleyes:

I was just watching the news and they were saying how much money was being removed from the Health Service in 2011 something like E700million i think

Who really actually pays for our public health service?
I have health insurance and in the event I have an accident i assume they will foot the bill for all my hospital expenses, or else if they refuse to pay out or i dont have insurance, seeing as i dont have a medical card I may possibly have to pay the bill.
Then their are those on Medical Cards who are intitled to free hospital and GP care for which the tax payer foots the bill.

I realise hospitals have day to day running expenses which have to be paid whether they are busy or not.
But considering our hospitals are running at full capacity why can they not make enough money to cover their own expenses?
Are there so many people on Medical Cards that this cancels out any money made from Insurane in-patients?
Are the hospitals just charging the insured/non insured a bare minimum just to cover their own expenses? Thus Making no profit???
Are Medical Card patients using the health service more seeing as they dont have to pay for it thus costing us the tax payer more and cancelling out any profit made from treating someone who has to pay for the service?

I am in business myself and i cant understand how a business that is so busy could not be making even a little profit........
Personally i would put of going to the doctor until i would be on deaths door as it is just so expensive then there are others who have it in their weekly routine to visit the doc for a chat.

I am not attacking people on medical cards with this post just i am just wondering who really pays for public health?
I have been to hospital and am very grateful for the excellent service from our nurses and doctors(who have all taken pay reductions) but this can be a very expensive few days and if i didnt have insurance i would be feeling considerably more pain. So its not cheap by any means........

Cookie_Monster

hospitals are a social service, not a business*. they are not there to make money and they are funded by the state through taxes and levies via the health budget and charges to insurers or patients.

*apart from private ones obviously

Chuchoter

In America hospitals run like businesses. And if you don't have insurance and you lose a hand, you're staying that way unless you have 100 grand to pay for it.

Hande hoche!

Smokers and the obese :pac:

mickdw

I actually believe that if the hospitals were run as a business (privately), charging health insurers for all treatments carried out and the state actually funding health insurance for every man, woman & child, it might still be cheaper than funding the hse as it currently does.
The HSE had a budget of 14 billion in 2010 I think.
4 million people could have health insurance policy cost of €1000 each for 4 billion euro.
I bet this is significantly less than the hospitals currently cost.
Sure some parts of the public service would have to remain such as ambulance etc but I would love to know what the figures would look like.
Currently the hse pay for people to go to uk via treatment purchase fund and I woudnt be surprised if even that costs them less than doing it here

10belowzero

well if your in mary harney's cumannn or a finna fail voter , you'll be o/k ,just say bertie sent you , I'll tell you one thing , make sure you're DEAD or near it , before you go near the mater A+E , I woul't wish that misbegotten kip on anyone , except the insurance company who will charge you for the trolley , and the junkie's who will rob you or your seat , ( if your not already dead ).

agrostar

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

hospitals are a social service, not a business*. they are not there to make money and they are funded by the state through taxes and levies via the health budget and charges to insurers or patients.

*apart from private ones obviously

Does this mean that hospitals are treating insured/non insured people at a loss or just breaking even to balance the books????
Are insured people paying twice?
Once for Health Insurance and secondly via taxs and charges?

Anita Blow

10belowzero wrote: »

well if your in mary harney's cumannn or a finna fail voter , you'll be o/k ,just say bertie sent you , I'll tell you one thing , make sure you're DEAD or near it , before you go near the mater A+E , I woul't wish that misbegotten kip on anyone , except the insurance company who will charge you for the trolley , and the junkie's who will rob you or your seat , ( if your not already dead ).

It's a disgrace Joe

starbelgrade

Health services are always a bit odd... you pay into them in case you need them, but in the hope that you never will.

Cookie_Monster

agrostar wrote: »

Are insured people paying twice? Once for Health Insurance and secondly via taxs and charges?

Yes.

You pay PAYE, VAT, duty, health levy, PRSI etc which all goes into a big tax pot, a massive proportion of which goes to the health budget.

Yet this entitles you to pretty much **** all free from the health service.

You then pay for health insurance which covers the cost of any health care, but you also have to pay an excess on top of you premium in many cases

so threefold and yet the service provided is still totally shite.

I think mickdw is 100% correct, we'd save billions a year under his example of setup

TheZohanS

Where's OUR NAMA???????????? Hmmm?