Why don't we have free healthcare?

Hank_Jones

Healthcare is something that I often think about, generally about how overpriced it is in this country and how,
as I have become older, now consider trips to the doctor to generally be a waste of money.

I look at the UK and how they introduced free healthcare after the second World War, when they had almost nothing,
and it leaves me wondering why Ireland, with all the resources we had during the celtic tiger era, didn't manage to fix the health care in this country.

I think that healthcare should be a right, not something that is properly available to only a select few.

Someday, hopefully, our healthcare system will be able to compare to that of the British healthcare system in 1944...

maygitchell

Becoz stuff costs mooolah lol

El Weirdo

Hank_Jones wrote: »

Why don't we have free healthcare?

That's the why.

LighterGuy

Sure doesnt Canada still have free healthcare?
Ah op, just guess its been the greedy Irish government over the decades.

amacachi

Hank_Jones wrote: »

Healthcare is something that I often think about, generally about how overpriced it is in this country and how going I now,
as I have become older, consider trips to the doctor to generally be a waste of money.

I look at the UK and how they introduced free healthcare after the second World War, when they had almost nothing,
and it leaves me wondering why Ireland, with all the resources we had during the celtic tiger era, didn't manage to fix the health care in this country.

I think that healthcare should be a right, not something that is properly available to only a select few.

Someday, hopefully, our healthcare system will be able to compare to that of the British healthcare system in 1944...

Effort? Fairly sure the HSE costs about as much per person as the NHS, fairly different output though.

Saila

cause they kept voting in shower of cunts after shower of cunts

policarp

Because all the health care money was diverted into Charles J Haughey's special fund and that was only the start of it. . .

The Snipe

Because our country is ****

LeixlipRed

Because it's better if people die than we don't pay bank the German and French banks. Because you know, there's no alternative.

krudler

GP visits are definitely overpriced, 50-60 a pop to get a sick note or just get told to take a few days off and drink loads of fluids, I never go to the doc unless its something I have to do these days, I basically spent my savings on doctors visits when I was ill for a few months. and I guarantee gp's dont declare a lot of their income, its 50 quid into their hand for each patient for a lot of them, which how I pay my gp.

mickydoomsux

Because there's no such thing.

Someone has to pay for "free" healthcare.

Penfailed

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Because there's no such thing.

Someone has to pay for "free" healthcare.

Exactly.

Kevin Duffy

Because it's too lucrative for GPs and consultants to give up their private healthcare income.

jimmycrackcorm

Hank_Jones wrote: »

I look at the UK and how they introduced free healthcare after the second World War, when they had almost nothing,

Someday, hopefully, our healthcare system will be able to compare to that of the British healthcare system in 1944...

The UK got a $5 billion loan from the US after the war. It was only finally repaid a few years ago.

4leto

Because free healthcare is not free, it is massively expensive, its labour intensive with a lot of expensive professions. In Ireland our health system employs a 120,000 all earning a wage from the public purse, then you have modern treatments. The high tech cutting edge R and D,ed drugs and procedures costing us the tax payers money, to the tune of 18 billion a year.

Now as we are living longer this is absolutely unsustainable. Although our parents have had a free medical cards rest assure we wont. I know a girl who last year was treated for cancer, they have private insurance so they could see the private costs alone on their statement. For the private alone care it was 260,000, as to how much was encrued by the public health system for her treatment, that can only be guessed, but its safe to say it was probably another 260,000.

She recovered, but only because of our heath system, it really is quite good when you have a serious life threatening complaint.

westendgirlie

National Insurance contributions (prsi) are higher in the UK and this goes towards the NHS. I'd happilly pay more PRSI for free healthcare.

tempura

Had a discussion with my doctor recently while handing over my 50 quid for birth control prescripition. :eek:

Asked him why i had to pay so much to just get a prescripition.

Apparently he only gets about 5 euro per medical card patient therefore he has to make his money somewhere hence the huge charges to non medical card holders.

Don't know how much truth is in that though.

Also just to add, this is not a slur against med card holders.

Boulevardier

I think that our failure to develop a national health service has been appalling.

What in the name of God was the point in winning our independence from Britain if the effect was to not provide the health service we would have had if we had stayed in the UK?

Independence has had practically no benefit unless you count as benefits the lack of a health service, an unprotected scenic heritage and an ultra-conservative supreme court which preserves the rights of property at all costs.

The men of 1916 won our right to become a gombeen's paradise. The lack of free healthcare bears this out unanswerably. They must be turning in their graves.

LaFlammeRouge

Boulevardier wrote: »

The men of 1916 won our right to become a gombeen's paradise. The lack of free healthcare bears this out unanswerably. They must be turning in their graves.

Who pays for free healthcare :pac:. There should be money incentive in healthcare. It is the only way new medicines and new treatments get developed.

suitseir

Hank_Jones wrote: »

Healthcare is something that I often think about, generally about how overpriced it is in this country and how,
as I have become older, now consider trips to the doctor to generally be a waste of money.

I look at the UK and how they introduced free healthcare after the second World War, when they had almost nothing,
and it leaves me wondering why Ireland, with all the resources we had during the celtic tiger era, didn't manage to fix the health care in this country.

I think that healthcare should be a right, not something that is properly available to only a select few.

Someday, hopefully, our healthcare system will be able to compare to that of the British healthcare system in 1944...

They have it in the UK because it is a country with a population of over 60m. Compare that with ROI with a population of 4.6m. We just could not financially sustain it!!!

Ronin247

We dont have free healthcare because we live in a country with a corrupt government system.Most the top bankers,politicians,businessmen/women, doctors and lawyers went to the same group of private schools and colleges,they live in the same areas of the city and they socialise in the same restaraunts, clubs and bars.
Why would we expect them to pass laws and develop the country to suit us the silent majority when we keep voting in the same bunch of corrupt muppets and accept the same shoddy services?
The system will never change while we allow it to remain as is.Why do our government give our gas and oil away to multinationals for a fat brown envelope when that money would pay for our healthcare.Why do they vote to bail out foreign banks AND IRISH BUSINESS PEOPLE who gambled on the property boom.

http://www.shelltosea.com/content/just-how-bad-irelands-oil-gas-deal

I will tell you why.........because we allow them!!


Saturday morning rant over.

Suryavarman

We don't have free healthcare because nothing is free.

westendgirlie wrote: »

National Insurance contributions (prsi) are higher in the UK and this goes towards the NHS. I'd happilly pay more PRSI for free healthcare.

Free things cost more? that seems like a bit of a contradiction to me.

suitseir wrote: »

They have it in the UK because it is a country with a population of over 60m. Compare that with ROI with a population of 4.6m. We just could not financially sustain it!!!

What does population have to do with anything?

LaFlammeRouge

Ronin247 wrote: »

http://www.shelltosea.com/content/just-how-bad-irelands-oil-gas-deal

Yawn.

Imagine the shell to sea freaks running our healthcare system. LOL

Kevin Duffy

If I ever get sick, I'm gonna be the first person ever to defect by getting onto a plane at Shannon to go here .

Kevin Duffy

LaFlammeRouge wrote: »

Yawn.

Imagine the shell to sea freaks running our healthcare system. LOL

Yawn.

Imagine being such a sheep as to dismiss anyone who protests as a "freak". LOL.

LaFlammeRouge

Kevin Duffy wrote: »

Yawn.

Imagine being such a sheep as to dismiss anyone who protests as a "freak". LOL.

Baaaaa

stoneill

The health care we pay for is totally shíte - can you imagine what a free system would be like?
Field hospitals, swigging whiskey to dull the pain while a blood splattered junior doctor hacked away at your limbs using a rusty saw. Or something.

WalterMitty

Economics 101: Nothing a government provides is free, it is paid for by everyone paying tax .
We actually spend more per capita here on healthcare than the countries with best healthsystems in world, total HSE spend plus all private payments to GPs and consultants and VHI subscriptions etc. Its just the resources are so badly managed and average health worker wage so high compared to best public health systems.

Ronin247

LaFlammeRouge wrote: »

Yawn.

Imagine the shell to sea freaks running our healthcare system. LOL

As opposed to who is running it now??

I dont agree with a lot of the shell to sea but used a fact from the website to emphasise my point.LOL

Hank_Jones

Should have said "free"....I'm well aware that the British healthcare system is paid for through the tax system.

We may be mucher smaller as a region than the UK, but surely it would be possible to have a "free" healthcare system on a much smaller scale.

I would feel that with all the money squandered, somebody would have pushed for a free healthcare system.

A "free" healthcare system would possibly reduce the amount of brown envelopes politicians receive....

WalterMitty

Hank_Jones wrote: »

Should have said "free"....I'm well aware that the British healthcare system is paid for through the tax system.

We may be mucher smaller as a region than the UK, but surely it would be possible to have a "free" healthcare system on a much smaller scale.

I would feel that with all the money squandered, somebody would have pushed for a free healthcare system.

A "free" healthcare system would possibly reduce the amount of brown envelopes politicians receive....

Of course we could have a free at source healthcare system but GPs , consultants,high level admin officers and managers etc would have to be reduced in pay susbstantially to around the EU average for their post but they dont want that.
In scandinavia which is held up as a model to follow by lefty types the average wage in health sector is a lot lower than here despite a similar cost of living and those scandinavian countries actually being rich ,unlike us who are only an average,highly indebted country now.

4leto

But us Irish we are gas, good craic but bless us we are not the brightest. We want all this free stuff, but we don't want to pay anymore taxes.

So what do we enjoy, free education up to second level, ohh I know its not free we have to pay for uniforms and books, but that is all. We then wanted free third level which turned out to be a disaster.

We have a social safety net that is the most generous in Europe. The highest dole and pensions etc.

We have a state pension again very generous, we have index linked PS pensions which are incredibly generous.

We have free hospital care, we have totally free healthcare for the under priviliaged and people over 70(a growing part of our population)

Yet we still want more and not pay anything more in taxes. It all reminds me of Douglas Adam's bistromathics. So now we are borrowing 20 billion a year of soon to be IMF?ECB money, because the financial markets are closed to us, to pay for all this free stuff.

Mickeroo

Ronin247 wrote: »

We dont have free healthcare because we live in a country with a corrupt government system.Most the top bankers,politicians,businessmen/women, doctors and lawyers went to the same group of private schools and colleges,they live in the same areas of the city and they socialise in the same restaraunts, clubs and bars.
Why would we expect them to pass laws and develop the country to suit us the silent majority when we keep voting in the same bunch of corrupt muppets and accept the same shoddy services?
The system will never change while we allow it to remain as is.Why do our government give our gas and oil away to multinationals for a fat brown envelope when that money would pay for our healthcare.Why do they vote to bail out foreign banks AND IRISH BUSINESS PEOPLE who gambled on the property boom.

http://www.shelltosea.com/content/just-how-bad-irelands-oil-gas-deal

I will tell you why.........because we allow them!!


Saturday morning rant over.

Look at the bottom end of that 3 year old graph, do you think Ireland's healthcare system is worse than Iran, Libyas et al? If you don't then I have no idea why on earth you'd stick that graph in a thread about the healthcare system.

Ronin247

Mickeroo wrote: »

Look at the bottom end of that 3 year old graph, do you think Ireland's healthcare system is worse than Iran, Libyas et al? If you don't then I have no idea why on earth you'd stick that graph in a thread about the healthcare system.

Lets look at Iran and Libya.They were run by dictators who siphoned off the money for themselves whereas our politicians used the money for what exactly??

The graph is illustrating what a bad deal we took.Why?We all know how these things work,someone gets a big fat envelope and the laws change to suit a multinational company and screw the people.

Forgot to mention that healthcare is free in Libya and free to most Iranians.

Mickeroo

Ronin247 wrote: »

Lets look at Iran and Libya.They were run by dictators who siphoned off the money for themselves whereas our politicians used the money for what exactly??

The graph is illustrating what a bad deal we took.Why?We all know how these things work,someone gets a big fat envelope and the laws change to suit a multinational company and screw the people.

Which laws changed to suit a multi national company in regards to the healthcare system?

4leto

Ronin247 wrote: »

Lets look at Iran and Libya.They were run by dictators who siphoned off the money for themselves whereas our politicians used the money for what exactly??

The graph is illustrating what a bad deal we took.Why?We all know how these things work,someone gets a big fat envelope and the laws change to suit a multinational company and screw the people.

How much do you THINK was in these envelopes and how many politicians do we have. Think what you want but none of our politicians or x politicians are billionaires, not even multi millionaires.

So even if everyone of them was corrupt which they were not, you are talking pittance.

Mike 1972

suitseir wrote: »

They have it in the UK because it is a country with a population of over 60m. Compare that with ROI with a population of 4.6m. We just could not financially sustain it!!!

This argument is trotted out for why just about every public service in Ireland is utter shyte and its a load of bollix.

Bigger pouplation = more tax revenue but also = more service users so net difference = sh@g all.

But if you can prove me wrong then hand the shaggin lot over to Bussels and then then we can all live to 200 under the superstates (450 million plus) health service ?

ejmaztec

Hank_Jones wrote: »

Should have said "free"....I'm well aware that the British healthcare system is paid for through the tax system.

We may be mucher smaller as a region than the UK, but surely it would be possible to have a "free" healthcare system on a much smaller scale.

I would feel that with all the money squandered, somebody would have pushed for a free healthcare system.

A "free" healthcare system would possibly reduce the amount of brown envelopes politicians receive....

I think the concept of the NHS in the UK was based on a scheme that was started in a Welsh town some years before, where the local impoverished worked paid a small amount each week, so that they could get medical treatment when they needed it. If it could happen on such a small scale, there'd be no reason for the same system not being able to operate here.

The biggest problem that Aneurin Bevan had when he was putting the nuts and bolts of the NHS together, was in persuading the medical profession to back it. He announced a launch date for the NHS and wasn't completely certain that the medical profession backing was going to be in place. It could have gone completely pear-shaped, but at the last minute he got the backing that he wanted.

There would be no-one in Ireland with enough guts to take on the medical profession in the same way that Bevan did in the UK.

LaFlammeRouge

Ronin247 wrote: »

The graph is illustrating what a bad deal we took.Why?We all know how these things work,someone gets a big fat envelope and the laws change to suit a multinational company and screw the people.

Scofflaw made a good post on this issue http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66163445&postcount=31

If you want to believe crazy propagandists like Maura Harrington than go right ahead.

Sooopie

Because a lot of of tax money goes towards the people in this country who milk the state for everything its worth & have always had their hands out for whatever they can get.

melekalikimaka

Suryavarman wrote: »

We don't have free healthcare because nothing is free.



Free things cost more? that seems like a bit of a contradiction to me.



What does population have to do with anything?

because state run has always lead to less efficiency compared to private run equivalents.

and economy of scale... google it

Anita Blow

Mike 1972 wrote: »

This argument is trotted out for why just about every public service in Ireland is utter shyte and its a load of bollix.

Bigger pouplation = more tax revenue but also = more service users so net difference = sh@g all.

Yes but bigger population allows for Economies of Scale. A service with 60 million customers has far more negotiating power with banks/suppliers than a service with 4.5 million customers.

melekalikimaka

are people genuinely trying to blame finna fail for no free health care in ireland... seriously lads, you need a new group to blame... that old song has gotten too old

Mike 1972

melekalikimaka wrote: »

are people genuinely trying to blame finna fail for no free health care in ireland... seriously lads, you need a new group to blame... that old song has gotten too old

In this instance it was more the Roman Catholic Church.

But imagine blaming the lack of an essential public service on a party which has been in government for most of the last seventy years like...........

melekalikimaka wrote: »

because state run has always lead to less efficiency compared to private run equivalents.

So how does one account for the US healthcare "system" being among of the worst (and most expensive) in the developed world ?

And 250 million population....economies of scale....google it.

LeixlipRed

Amazes me the priorities of some. What is a healthcare system? It's the main instrument for protecting your loved ones from dying. How can people prioritise spending billions on bank bailouts over that?? People discuss these things in the abstract, do they even realise a bad healthcare system means people dying that don't have to die?

mickydoomsux

LeixlipRed wrote: »

How can people prioritise spending billions on bank bailouts over that??

Because if the banks go down the whole country collapses in on itself. Doctors, nurses, porters, suppliers etc. etc. don't get paid and the health system we have now closes down completely.

LeixlipRed

Complete and utter rubbish. You are a sheep my friend. Did rte tell you that?

4leto

LeixlipRed wrote: »

Amazes me the priorities of some. What is a healthcare system? It's the main instrument for protecting your loved ones from dying. How can people prioritise spending billions on bank bailouts over that?? People discuss these things in the abstract, do they even realise a bad healthcare system means people dying that don't have to die?

Because of economics and its interdependence with banks. With busted banks you would absolutely have no healthcare system, you would have no public services. You would have an economic collapse and a Mad max society, I am not saying the bail out policy was all correct, but if it didn't happen AIB/BOI/Irish Permanent would have went in 2008 with all our savings and the nations business capital.

It was that grim. Still fukcen is.

ejmaztec

melekalikimaka wrote: »

are people genuinely trying to blame finna fail for no free health care in ireland... seriously lads, you need a new group to blame... that old song has gotten too old

You need a new party to support because your song's gotten too old as well.:P

mikemac

ejmaztec wrote: »

There would be no-one in Ireland with enough guts to take on the medical profession in the same way that Bevan did in the UK.

Noel Browne
But he couldn't get backing for it and the medical profession opposed him
The Church gets a lot of the blame for opposing his scheme but they weren't alone

Fianna Fáil pumped huge money into the system, some improvements were made but it's hard to see
In our own fair town of Nenagh I can think of three separate buildings from the old Mid West health board, they all still have staff and cleaners and cost money, still open. Yet the hospital got downgraded as the HSE doesn't have enough money
Abolishing the health boards was a good idea but the buildings and staff are still there, Bertie overruled Harney and there were no mass redundancies. Bertie the Socialist

Anita Blow

Mike 1972 wrote: »

So how does one account for the US healthcare "system" being among of the worst (and most expensive) in the developed world ?

And 250 million population....economies of scale....google it.

Not comparable. US Health system is private and run by corporate greed in my opinion.
Profits come before the patient. That's why there's so much discussion over there about reform. In countries with Universal Healthcare, the government can set the rate of treatments. In the US, it's the insurance companies and private healthcare companies which do it.
There's also a load of differences in systems from country to country. Doesn't stop the fact that larger countries benefit from economies of scale. That's not an opinion. It's fact.
Obviously we have a hugely wasteful health system aswell which needs serious reform, but there's still aspects which are out of our control because of our size.