Health Spending Lies - Europes Youngest Population but spend the most on Health

CDfm

According to Ronan Lyons an Economist at Cambridge University we spend 10% of National Income on Health with the Youngest Population in the EU15.

To be in line with our EU Peers he says this should be 7%.

Unhealthy Irish Public Spending?

Last, but unfortunately by no means least, is Irish public spending in health care. Ireland’s government spends 10% of national income on healthcare, more than a quarter above the typical EU-15 country. What makes this truly puzzling is that Ireland should be an outlier in the other direction: Ireland has a significantly younger population than its EU-15 peers. The graph below shows a scatter of public spending on health and the average age in a country, for a sample of thirty countries. A trend-line in light green shows the mild upward relationship between a country’s age and its spending on health. Ireland is the anomaly: by far the youngest population apart from Cyprus but spending by far the most.
Spending on health compared to average age, various European countries

The figures are if not astounding then by any definition significant. If Ireland’s government spent – as its median age might suggest – just 7% of national income on health, rather than the 10% currently spent, the government could expect to save anywhere up to €3.5bn on its healthcare bill, taking into account some of the savings that have been made in the last two years.
In review, bringing expenditure in these five areas outlined above – health, economic affairs, public order, housing and environment – back into line with our EU peers would save about €9.2bn. General efficiency savings and ensuring social welfare reaches only those intended could achieve the remainder, giving the total of €10bn needed to bring Ireland’s deficit back to manageable levels.


http://www.ronanlyons.com/2010/11/02/where-should-ireland-cut-its-public-spending-thoughts-for-budget-2011-ii/

So why is this so ?


I mean Fine Gaels Proposal of a Dutch Style Insurance Scheme just means more money.







( I got this from following the links here http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/two-questions-you-must-ask-your-candidates-when-they-knock-on-your-door/ )




I had never thought our health spending was so high but around 50% or so higher than what it should be has really shocked me.

bamboozle

i guess the issue is that of that 10% spent, how much is spent on administration & middle management etc? ie there is lots and lots of wastage in the HSE, this is why FG are looking to seek further voluntary redundancies within the admin layers of the HSE.

thousands working in HR alone in the HSE.

ednwireland

it needs top down reform of the management and administration thats where the money is wasted

i predict more culling of front line services and increases in management and administration staff :mad:

CDfm

bamboozle wrote: »

i guess the issue is that of that 10% spent, how much is spent on administration & middle management etc? ie there is lots and lots of wastage in the HSE, this is why FG are looking to seek further voluntary redundancies within the admin layers of the HSE.

thousands working in HR alone in the HSE.

ednwireland wrote: »

it needs top down reform of the management and administration thats where the money is wasted

i predict more culling of front line services and increases in management and administration staff :mad:

Do you guys have information to back this up. Are our management to staff ratio's any different to Europe.

It is a very emotive subject and the Health Service is the elephant in the room. It is a smoke and mirrors subject.

When I see this kind of stuff on the Health Service it is not down to me as a taxpayer but down to the Civil Service to work within a budget.

The way it has been run is blank chequebook stuff.

I do not want the FG proposal to pay for insurance when what I am paying already should be giving me a Free NHS style service.

So if it needs total reform the starting point has to be that the Health Service Unions have to agree with total reform.

If that also means getting European level wages -will they agree to that -benchmarking to european levels of pay to save jobs ?

How far are they prepared to compromise to achieve a modern efficient health service.

Also, what are the political parties proposing to achieve this.

tails_naf

ednwireland wrote: »

it needs top down reform of the management and administration thats where the money is wasted

i predict more culling of front line services and increases in management and administration staff :mad:

For the love of god. How about you base your 'predictions' on what the policies state they will do?

FG are saying No front line cuts. They are going after admin and middle management. there are up to 5,000 jobs that could go there, in the HSE alone, that would not affect services or the front line.

If fact cutting some of these positions could actually improve services, as right now there is so much confusion over which middle-manager is responsible for what, that no one makes a call on anything.

I can't get over how many people flat out ignore what a party has written down as what they WILL do. Even if they don't actually do it, they are at least more likely to follow what they said, than a party that have not said it at all! FF cut loads of front liners, and the rest either don't want to cut / cut too few / or don't specify the area for the cuts.

jmayo

Well a huge chunk of our public health spend is actually on salaries and wages.
I would like to see an actual breakdown of healthcare spending across different countries based on numbers employed.
I bet that would be very interesting. :rolleyes:

As regards health cutbacks, the HSE have decided the way to cut the spending is to pass the cuts onto the private sector, thus the private sector workers who provide services to the HSE can suffer the cuts whilst the HSE employees can still enjoy their nice salaries in their untouchable jobs. :rolleyes:

bamboozle

CDfm wrote: »

Do you guys have information to back this up. Are our management to staff ratio's any different to Europe.

It is a very emotive subject and the Health Service is the elephant in the room. It is a smoke and mirrors subject.

When I see this kind of stuff on the Health Service it is not down to me as a taxpayer but down to the Civil Service to work within a budget.

The way it has been run is blank chequebook stuff.

I do not want the FG proposal to pay for insurance when what I am paying already should be giving me a Free NHS style service.

So if it needs total reform the starting point has to be that the Health Service Unions have to agree with total reform.

If that also means getting European level wages -will they agree to that -benchmarking to european levels of pay to save jobs ?

How far are they prepared to compromise to achieve a modern efficient health service.

Also, what are the political parties proposing to achieve this.

there are a few thousand working in HR in the HSE alone, when the 8 health boards merged into the HSE there seemed to have been 8 people in the similar roles across a lot of Admin functions.

no way HSE staff will agree to european level wages as this is most cases would result in huge (and further) reductions in pay.

as far as i can see the main way of reducing HSE costs over the coming years will be through natural wastage and voluntary redundancies.

analucija

It would be interesting to see that statistic for 2006/07. I suspect they were not able to drop spending in health radically as was the drop in GDP in the last couple of years. There are inefficiencies in HSE that should be sorted out but I suspect that salaries in general are problem and especially higher earners are still overpaid.

CDfm

bamboozle wrote: »

there are a few thousand working in HR in the HSE alone, when the 8 health boards merged into the HSE there seemed to have been 8 people in the similar roles across a lot of Admin functions.

No way HSE staff will agree to european level wages as this is most cases would result in huge (and further) reductions in pay.

as far as i can see the main way of reducing HSE costs over the coming years will be through natural wastage and voluntary redundancies.

So we have 450,000 unemployed and pensioners and lone parents all taking money from the one pot of ever decreasing tax revenue and huge borrowings.

If you said 5,000 admin staff at 50,000 salary each that is 250 million.

That is still not close to the 3.5 billion that Ronan Lyons is talking about.

What are the Unions suggesting be done.Look what the IMF has done in Greece.