Universal Health Insurance - Why must we pay twice. It gets NHS Free type money

CDfm

I am sorry , but I think this Universal Health Insurance is a scam

http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=18778

The HSE already are funded to levels 50% higher than equivalent Health Services and if anything for the money it gets the HSE should be free.

Where is the national efficiency drive.

smiles302

On this, will the free GP visits be for everyone or just for people who are struggling financially?

Uncle Ben

CDfm wrote: »

I am sorry , but I think this Universal Health Insurance is a scam

http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=18778

The HSE already are funded to levels 50% higher than equivalent Health Services and if anything for the money it gets the HSE should be free.

Where is the national efficiency drive.

I would not say its a scam, but its certainly not 'free'. Speaking to a friend of mine who has lived in Holland for approx. 20 years, and which the FG party kept quoting ad nauseum, she said that over there the system works by: Self employed pay approx.4% of salary and employed pay approx. 6% of salary. On top of that every adult over 18 pays €100 approx. per month, plus every adult pays the first €100 on medicines and the rest are free. So as an example a married person earning €30k with a wife and two siblings over 18 will pay;

6%/€30,000=€1800
4x€100x12= €4800
4x€100 = € 400
a grand total of approx. €7000 p.a.

Now the system does work quite well apparently, however for the money being spent her views and that of her friends are that it should be an awful lot better. Furthermore, considering how the Dutch apparently pay €40 billion into their Health Service almost the same as Ireland and its pop. is almost 20 million, 4 times the size of ours, she would not be surprised if the Irish would not have to pay even more!

CDfm

I would love to know how much it is going to cost everyone.

It is after all a tax

So this is a real thing for people who already work on a budget. The idea of free health care for all is great but how is it going to impact on tax.

http://www.thejournal.ie/budget-calculator-2011/#

So if the insurance is a 5% levy on income you can scale your income back

20,000 becomes 19,000

40,000 becomes 38,000

But will this get us better health care.

In Ireland the Health Service is already adequetly funded and we spend 10% of Gross National Income on it compared with the EU average of 7 %.

We spend more than our EU Peers and the HSE does not deliver the services.

On top of this we are going to get charged 5% of our wages and pay it over to the same bunch.

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/

This is from Ronan Lyons whose very interesting blog is here.
Guess what.His arguments make sense on plain english.

The real thing is giving all the money to the HSE when it has proved impossible to manage or reform.

What are our tax bills and insurance bills going to look like.

At least thats what I thought till I saw Uncle Ben

Uncle Ben wrote: »

So as an example a married person earning €30k with a wife and two siblings over 18 will pay;

6%/€30,000=€1800
4x€100x12= €4800
4x€100 = € 400
a grand total of approx. €7000 p.a.

Now the system does work quite well apparently, however for the money being spent her views and that of her friends are that it should be an awful lot better. Furthermore, considering how the Dutch apparently pay €40 billion into their Health Service almost the same as Ireland and its pop. is almost 20 million, 4 times the size of ours, she would not be surprised if the Irish would not have to pay even more!

And get this

Now the system does work quite well apparently, however for the money being spent her views and that of her friends are that it should be an awful lot better. Furthermore, considering how the Dutch apparently pay €40 billion into their Health Service almost the same as Ireland and its pop. is almost 20 million, 4 times the size of ours, she would not be surprised if the Irish would not have to pay even more!

According to scale without the insurance charge per capita the amount paid into it is the same.

Oh dear.

Why dont we just give the money and the HSE to the Dutch and get free health care for everybody.

MagicMarker

Uncle Ben wrote: »

I would not say its a scam, but its certainly not 'free'. Speaking to a friend of mine who has lived in Holland for approx. 20 years, and which the FG party kept quoting ad nauseum, she said that over there the system works by: Self employed pay approx.4% of salary and employed pay approx. 6% of salary. On top of that every adult over 18 pays €100 approx. per month, plus every adult pays the first €100 on medicines and the rest are free. So as an example a married person earning €30k with a wife and two siblings over 18 will pay;

6%/€30,000=€1800
4x€100x12= €4800
4x€100 = € 400
a grand total of approx. €7000 p.a.

Now the system does work quite well apparently, however for the money being spent her views and that of her friends are that it should be an awful lot better. Furthermore, considering how the Dutch apparently pay €40 billion into their Health Service almost the same as Ireland and its pop. is almost 20 million, 4 times the size of ours, she would not be surprised if the Irish would not have to pay even more!

Your figures look completely wrong tbh.

Are you trying to tell me a working man has to pay 100 per month for himself as well as his wife and his kids? (I assume you mean offspring, and not siblings?)

Any links to back that up because I sure as hell don't believe it.

Arciphel

Is this going to mean that employers who currently pay their employees VHI subscriptions will no longer be doing that in the future if this stealth tax comes in?

CDfm

MagicMarker wrote: »

Your figures look completely wrong tbh.

Are you trying to tell me a working man has to pay 100 per month for himself as well as his wife and his kids? (I assume you mean offspring, and not siblings?)

Any links to back that up because I sure as hell don't believe it.

I would like to know that too.

If we are paying this does that mean tax & prsi & USC are going to change too.

What is the effect on our Net Income.

Uncle Ben

MagicMarker wrote: »

Your figures look completely wrong tbh.

Are you trying to tell me a working man has to pay 100 per month for himself as well as his wife and his kids? (I assume you mean offspring, and not siblings?)

Any links to back that up because I sure as hell don't believe it.

No links as it is an old friend of mine over there, but I'll make more enquiries over the week. The figures I was given are all from my pal and her circumstances, I took the €30k figure as the Irish avg. industrial wage.

Uncle Ben

MagicMarker wrote: »

Your figures look completely wrong tbh.

Are you trying to tell me a working man has to pay 100 per month for himself as well as his wife and his kids? (I assume you mean offspring, and not siblings?)

Any links to back that up because I sure as hell don't believe it.

Ive no links as its an old friend over there, however I have no reason to doubt her. Ill make more enquiries over the week, as for USC, VHI, employers tax etc, I have no idea the impacts etc on same. I was just having a conversation and mentioned that we could be getting the Dutch system and they were the figures given.

PeakOutput

presumably with universal health insurance the hospitals get taken over by private companies so they are no longer funded by the goverment

the goverment then runs the insurance company instead of the actual hospitals, is that not correct?

CDfm

PeakOutput wrote: »

presumably with universal health insurance the hospitals get taken over by private companies so they are no longer funded by the goverment

the goverment then runs the insurance company instead of the actual hospitals, is that not correct?

So they take health service and give it away and hocus pocus




Somehow, I dont believe that by introducing an insurance company we get a magical fairyland health service






These things dont happen in real life.

Not even on Jerry Springer.

The hocus pocus about what is going to cost and how it is going to stack up against our personal taxes.

PeakOutput

CDfm wrote: »

So they take health service and give it away and hocus pocus


These things dont happen in real life.

Not even on Jerry Springer.

The hocus pocus about what is going to cost and how it is going to stack up against our personal taxes.

I didnt say anything about what the end result would be im just wondering if that is the plan

CDfm

PeakOutput wrote: »

I didnt say anything about what the end result would be im just wondering if that is the plan

Sorry, I didnt intend to make that suggestion.

My point is that it is already over funded and not delivering and this plan seems to be HSE Mk#2 with lots of more money being pumped in.

Experience tells us that we should not expect a miracle just to pay an awful lot more.

nesf

PeakOutput wrote: »

presumably with universal health insurance the hospitals get taken over by private companies so they are no longer funded by the goverment

the goverment then runs the insurance company instead of the actual hospitals, is that not correct?

No. The hospitals are turned into independent not-for-profit trusts. So they have independence to make their own decisions in how to invest money etc, are run by a board of management accountable to a board of trustees (not sure how these will be picked). The hospitals definitely aren't going to be turned over to private companies to be run for a profit.

nesf

MagicMarker wrote: »

Your figures look completely wrong tbh.

Are you trying to tell me a working man has to pay 100 per month for himself as well as his wife and his kids? (I assume you mean offspring, and not siblings?)

Any links to back that up because I sure as hell don't believe it.

From: http://www.justlanded.com/english/Netherlands/Netherlands-Guide/Health/Healthcare

Fees of the basic package

The fees for the basic health insurance package are annually determined by the health insurance companies and are normally approximately €95 per month. Although the Ministry of Health ( Ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport) determines a standard premium, the insurance companies determine the additions fee you will have to pay in the end by charging a certain rate and a no-claim charge. It is with these additional fees that the insurance companies compete with each other. There are various health insurance companies and a new law will make it easier to change between health insurance companies.

If you are required to purchase health insurance and are earning a salary, you will also pay a supplementary contribution from your income (rated 6.5% up to the first €30,000 of earnings; 4.4% for self-employed individuals).

The fees of health insurance companies can differ so it is advisable to compare the various prices. To help you with this choice, you can go to: www.kiesbeter.nl .

For some, healthcare in the Netherlands has become more expensive as a result of the changes. The Dutch government compensates these cases by offering a care grant ( zorgtoeslag). The Tax Administration ( belastingdienst) determines if you are eligible by examining your income. Foreigners are also entitled to this grant if they qualify.

Children under the age of 18 years do not have to pay any health insurance and are insured for free for the basic package of health care.

So all kids are free. You pay €100 per adult in the family per month. 6% of salary on the first 30K of salary. So max you'll be paying before drugs is: €4,200. Or €350 per month regardless of how many kids you have. This compares to paying circa €250 for 2 adults and 2 adults at the moment for VHI Plan B which does not cover medication, dental work for the kids or GP visits. So, €100 more per month for the average family for said bonuses under the Dutch system (assuming a family on €30K doesn't get subsidised). The more kids you have, the better off you are under the Dutch system, ditto for the poorer you are.

Now it would not surprise me if there was some subsidy for people earning €30K. Not a full subsidy or anything but something to help out. It would also not surprise me if companies organised cheaper rates due to deals with particular insurer for all the employees similar to the cheaper rates for VHI available in some workplace schemes already in place around the country right now. So this might be overstating the actual cost to the average person above. Also we have not seen the outline of the actual proposed plan from Fine Gael here.


Also to the above person you're originally quoting, there is no situation where someone would be paying for their sibling's insurance under the above system. If they could not work due to some illness or disability, then the State would fully subsidise their insurance for them. If they were in a low paid job then they would get a sizeable subsidy to their insurance premium making them affordable. There really is no way that someone on €30K would be picking up the tab for their two siblings so the figure of €7K a year is just plain wrong.

CDfm

nesf wrote: »

From: http://www.justlanded.com/english/Netherlands/Netherlands-Guide/Health/Healthcare



So all kids are free. You pay €100 per adult in the family per month. 6% of salary on the first 30K of salary. So this might be overstating the actual cost to the average person above. Also we have not seen the outline of the actual proposed plan from Fine Gael here.

But the change is that the government pay 10% of national income on healthcare and wanna make health insurance compulsory so we pay more.

People with insurance do so for a better service -so now they will pay more and get a worse service.

The payment is therefore on top of what people currently pay because we are already paying/spending per capita what the dutch spend thru our taxes.

Why can't we have a Dutch style service for what we spend now -that seems fairer to me.

This is a swizz if ever I heard one.

Our Health Budget is one of the top in Europe.

For lots of people its paying more to join a queue when they are optionally paying more to get out of the queue.

If the Health Service was properly run we wouldnt need the insurance in the first place.