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Ireland's Hospitals owned by the Rich

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    #182
    TheCitizen
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭TheCitizen


    Sean.3516 wrote: »
    Why do people despise private health insurance?

    This "Eat the Rich" attitude is so tiresome. If I'm a private individual with funds and I believe that I can set up a hospital that's good enough that people will be willing to pay me for the use of it rather than use the public system, then I should be able to do that. Healthcare actually is a product no matter how much people want to try and treat as a right. Healthcare only exists as the product of labour. Attempts to socialise it completely are a forced confiscation of both labour and property.

    People also misunderstand the distinction between the public and private sector here.

    The private sector PRE-EXISTED the public sector. Private healthcare was not invented so that people with money could get better healthcare than the poor people. Public healthcare was invented so that people left without healthcare due to economic reasons could get covered. Its not the default, its the fail-safe.

    :eek: Won't somebody think of the rich people


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    #183
    TheCitizen
    Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭TheCitizen


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    It is obvious from some of the left wing ideology being spewed all over this thread that the posters endorsing a "one tier" health system haven't a clue what they are talking about.

    They simply have never thought the concept through thoroughly enough.

    They are critiquing a current system which actually provides citizens with better healthcare … and then advocating implementing a system which would be detrimental to everyone receiving it.

    Gormless really.

    So the desire for a properly managed one tier health system is a bad thing now....In the name of fúck


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    #184
    IAMAMORON
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    KyussB wrote: »
    If private health care wants to provide breast augmentation and other not-strictly necessary services, I don't care about that - and if they can find a way to 'insure' stuff like that, leave it to them.

    No duplication of essential medical services provided by the public system, or anything which puts them in competition with the public system - their hospitals, staff, resources etc. are to remain nationalized - with the owners reimbursed for the asset losses at post-crash market prices.

    Nobody is free to purchase anything they like - that's not true on any country on earth - if we decide that the public health system takes priority here, and restrict people to the public system for essential treatment - then tough shit, you're free move to another country.

    The ramblings of a gormless totalitarian.

    Trite Tripe.

    Who exactly is "we"?


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    #185
    salonfire
    Registered Users Posts: 3,078 ✭✭✭salonfire


    TheCitizen wrote: »
    So the desire for a properly managed one tier health system is a bad thing now....In the name of fúck

    There is only one system that has been properly managed for years and that's the private one.

    The public system is used for its workers and unions to extract as much money from the tax payer as possible.


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    #186
    Charles Babbage
    Registered Users Posts: 5,471 ✭✭✭Charles Babbage


    salonfire wrote: »
    The public system is used for its workers and unions to extract as much money from the tax payer as possible.


    They haven't done very well at this, as many are on salaries lower than 12 years ago.


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    #187
    IAMAMORON
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    TheCitizen wrote: »
    :eek: Won't somebody think of the rich people

    You will find that if you think deeply enough( I respect that might be an issue for you), but you would rather have the option of securing your own financial future, than having to rely on a government to spend your money for you? Especially considering the current evidence on how government wastes our taxes.
    TheCitizen wrote: »
    So the desire for a properly managed one tier health system is a bad thing now....In the name of fúck

    A one tier system would not improve the service provided. In fact most of the intellectual resources currently available would leave the country if our healthcare system was nationalised. So not only would the one tier system be less effectual it would also be incompetent as to its' requirements. You don't want that.


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    #188
    Junkyard Tom
    Registered Users Posts: 10,117 ✭✭✭✭Junkyard Tom


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    They are critiquing a current system which actually provides citizens with better healthcare

    That piggy-backs on public infrastructure and indeed the fruits of the totality of human development but you go ahead and **** the bed at the thought of being denied what amounts to a system of health apartheid.

    If your private hospital had to generate its own electricity, was charged for every mile of road its ambulances used, treated its own sewage, purified its own water, picked up the bill for every aspect of its workers' education, then they simply wouldn't exist.

    Capiche?


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    #189
    ohnonotgmail
    Registered Users Posts: 40,159 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    Junkyard Tom wrote: »
    That piggy-backs on public infrastructure and indeed the fruits of the totality of human development but you go ahead and **** the bed at the thought of being denied what amounts to a system of health apartheid.

    If your private hospital had to generate its own electricity, was charged for every mile of road its ambulances used, treated its own sewage, purified its own water, picked up the bill for every aspect of its workers' education, then they simply wouldn't exist.

    Capiche?

    you could say that about any privately run business.


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    #190
    Fritzbox
    Registered Users Posts: 488 ✭✭Fritzbox


    ohnonotgmail wrote: »
    you could say that about any privately run business.

    Or even of any state run hospital.


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    #191
    1641
    Registered Users Posts: 1,256 ✭✭✭1641


    Junkyard Tom wrote: »
    That piggy-backs on public infrastructure and indeed the fruits of the totality of human development but you go ahead and **** the bed at the thought of being denied what amounts to a system of health apartheid.

    If your private hospital had to generate its own electricity, was charged for every mile of road its ambulances used, treated its own sewage, purified its own water, picked up the bill for every aspect of its workers' education, then they simply wouldn't exist.

    Capiche?


    The private hospital is paid for by the people (citizens!) using it. They pay their taxes and charges just the same as anybody else. That is the same tax revenue that pays for the roads, education, sewage, public health services, etc. that you are talking about. And after they have paid their share towards all those public services they choose to devote some of their discretionary income towards private healthcare.



    Capiche?


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    #192
    Fritzbox
    Registered Users Posts: 488 ✭✭Fritzbox


    1641 wrote: »
    The private hospital is paid for by the people (citizens!) using it. They pay their taxes and charges just the same as anybody else. That is the same tax revenue that pays for the roads, education, sewage, public health services, etc. that you are talking about. And after they have paid their share towards all those public services they choose to devote some of their discretionary income towards private healthcare.



    Capiche?

    Ironic, isn't it! The people who are willing to pay for private healthcare are the same people who are paying for most of the public healthcare service...


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    #193
    tjhook
    Registered Users Posts: 730 ✭✭✭tjhook


    KyussB wrote: »
    Nobody is free to purchase anything they like - that's not true on any country on earth - if we decide that the public health system takes priority here, and restrict people to the public system for essential treatment - then tough shit, you're free move to another country.
    You're correct. "We", the public citizenry, can ultimately create (through our elected representatives) whatever laws we want, and then people residing in this country just have to live with it.

    Furthermore, we're all already partly restricted to the public system for essential treatment, as the private system makes no attempt to provide a complete replacement for the public system in that regard.

    However, "We" have not decided (outside of current regulatory requirements) to ban qualified people from providing health services outside of the public system. Even Sláinte Care doesn't propose this.

    If anybody wants to live in such a society I could say "then tough shit, you're free move to another country". I wouldn't though - I believe in the right of people to look for change, even if I disagree with that change. What I would say is that the state needs to provide essential health services. Whether or not some company also starts providing some of those services is irrelevant to the state's responsibility.


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    #194
    SEPT 23 1989
    Registered Users Posts: 43,024 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    The invoice at the end of this will be tribunal inducing


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    #195
    IAMAMORON
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    Junkyard Tom wrote: »
    That piggy-backs on public infrastructure and indeed the fruits of the totality of human development but you go ahead and **** the bed at the thought of being denied what amounts to a system of health apartheid.

    If your private hospital had to generate its own electricity, was charged for every mile of road its ambulances used, treated its own sewage, purified its own water, picked up the bill for every aspect of its workers' education, then they simply wouldn't exist.

    Capiche?

    So you have never heard of rates?

    Private hospital rarely operate A&E departments, if ever.

    Universal healthcare is provided to everyone. " Health Apartheid" is a colourful simile, but it lacks context. I could enthuse any Apartheid issues if you could prove that private healthcare is not offered or available to everyone... but it is... so associating a 1980's South African racist domestic policy ( which was evidence of a totalitarian state) with offering citizens the options of paying a premium for healthcare insurance is biased and subjective. I am also losing respect for your argument.


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    #196
    Antares35
    Registered Users Posts: 3,845 ✭✭✭Antares35


    TheCitizen wrote: »
    :eek: Won't somebody think of the rich people


    Not everyone who pays private health insurance is rich. My parents pay theirs out of their pension. Plenty of others with bigger disposable incomes than them spending their money on takeaways, scramblers for the kids and designer tracksuits. Usually the ones giving out about the "monopoly" that the rich have.


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    #197
    Antares35
    Registered Users Posts: 3,845 ✭✭✭Antares35


    Charles Babbage wrote: »
    They haven't done very well at this, as many are on salaries lower than 12 years ago.

    Maybe if they got rid of the middle management deadwood they could pay their functional staff a little more. Of course, they can't get rid of the dinosaurs - all jobs for lives boys for the next few years until they skip off into the sunset with their DB pensions.


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    #198
    Antares35
    Registered Users Posts: 3,845 ✭✭✭Antares35


    Junkyard Tom wrote: »
    That piggy-backs on public infrastructure and indeed the fruits of the totality of human development but you go ahead and **** the bed at the thought of being denied what amounts to a system of health apartheid.

    If your private hospital had to generate its own electricity, was charged for every mile of road its ambulances used, treated its own sewage, purified its own water, picked up the bill for every aspect of its workers' education, then they simply wouldn't exist.

    Capiche?

    People who opt for private health insurance have already paid for a public bed via their taxes. Without their private health insurance, they would be entitled to that public bed the same way someone who doesn't pay health insurance would.
    Let's not forget that hospitals tend to rip the ars* out of it too when someone with health insurance is admitted. They are looked on as a cash cow.


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    #199
    Sean.3516
    Registered Users Posts: 861 ✭✭✭Sean.3516


    KyussB wrote: »
    If private health care wants to provide breast augmentation and other not-strictly necessary services, I don't care about that - and if they can find a way to 'insure' stuff like that, leave it to them.
    I don't understand why you think people paying private for boob jobs is fine while people paying private for chemotherapy is an assault on the HSE.
    KyussB wrote: »
    No duplication of essential medical services provided by the public system, or anything which puts them in competition with the public system - their hospitals, staff, resources etc. are to remain nationalized
    If you think that the public system could do just as good a job as the private system in terms of quality of care if the private system didn't exist, you're out of your mind. If the public system was just as good and efficient, it would have run the private system out of business long ago.

    The private system doesn't hinder the public system by competing with it. That's nonsense. One is paid for voluntarily by private individuals and the other is funded by everyone's taxes. If a group of people decide to opt for private how does that hurt the public system? It probably helps it by relieving some of the pressure. In fact people who have private insurance disproportionately fund the public system through taxes even though they don't use it.

    They do compete in terms of staff but the same can be said of public vs private in almost every other sector. The only solution to this problem is to re-introduce indentured servitude.
    KyussB wrote: »
    - with the owners reimbursed for the asset losses at post-crash market prices.
    Boy, that's nice of you. Forcible confiscation of property.
    KyussB wrote: »
    Nobody is free to purchase anything they like - that's not true on any country on earth - if we decide that the public health system takes priority here, and restrict people to the public system for essential treatment - then tough shit, you're free move to another country.
    What a tyrannical perspective.

    You are going to dictate to people the healthcare that they receive. Even if they want to voluntarily spend their own disposable income on healthcare that does not undercut the public system. These people pay FOR the public system even though they don't use it.

    Your approach even seems counterproductive to your own interests. Why would you want people stuck in the public system for essential treatments if they are voluntarily willing to spend their own money on that treatment somewhere else. You're actually increasing the burden on the public system.
    KyussB wrote: »
    then tough shit, you're free move to another country.
    Oh people do go to the United States and elsewhere all the time to get treatment that your public system can't provide or can't provide quick enough.


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    #200
    Sean.3516
    Registered Users Posts: 861 ✭✭✭Sean.3516


    TheCitizen wrote: »
    :eek: Won't somebody think of the rich people

    Believe it or not I'm not asking you to do anything for the rich people.

    I'm simply asking to you leave them alone considering that they, the top 1% provide most of the funding for a healthcare system they don't even use.

    You already take most of their income every year.

    You whinge about the public system all day long but your solution is to force private users who are mostly middle class (not rich btw) into the public system so that they can experience the same crappy care.

    STOP BULLYING THE RICH.


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    #201
    KyussB
    Registered Users Posts: 2,314 ✭✭✭KyussB


    Unless you count breast augmentation as an 'essential public service', there is no reason for the public services to do it. Anything that is essential, should be 100% public, with no private option - as that's the only way to ensure a fair health system.

    When those paying for the private health system, and those who own the private health system, are made to use the public system exclusively - then you'll quickly see the public system get the funding and reform it needs.

    A private system competing to hire healthcare workers out of the public system, or generally paying healthcare workers more than the public system does, absolutely is in competition with the public system.

    Private health individuals do use the public system, as well. They buy their way into preferential treatment in the public system. An additional reason why there must be no crossover in services between the public and private health systems.

    Public monopoly's are a completely normal thing - deployed only in areas they are deemed necessary, for the public good - those that don't like it have the freedom to move somewhere else - because they certainly don't have the freedom to buy their way into preferential treatment in every area of life.


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    #202
    1641
    Registered Users Posts: 1,256 ✭✭✭1641


    KyussB wrote: »


    Private health individuals do use the public system, as well. They buy their way into preferential treatment in the public system. An additional reason why there must be no crossover in services between the public and private health systems.

    .


    The thread is about private hospitals. Consultants in the public system being allowed to also see private patients is a completely different matter. I think the two systems should be seperated.

    However, people with private health insurance are perfectly entitled to use the public system as they have fully paid their contribution to it already through their taxes. But they are also being "invited" to sign a form to enable the public system to additionally bill the insurance company for their treatment, even though they are just getting the standard public treatment which they have already paid for. This is a cash cow for the public hospitals.


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    #203
    Salary Negotiator
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,148 ✭✭✭Salary Negotiator


    1641 wrote: »
    This is a cash cow for the public hospitals.

    €200m between July 2015 and 2016.


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    #204
    KyussB
    Registered Users Posts: 2,314 ✭✭✭KyussB


    Consultants in the public system being allowed to see private patients, is competition between the public and private sector - also leading to preferential treatment for private patients - and that's not the only way there's competition between the two health systems.

    One of a myriad of ways that people are allowed to buy their way to preferential treatment - which must be permanently stopped.


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    #205
    Junkyard Tom
    Registered Users Posts: 10,117 ✭✭✭✭Junkyard Tom


    Sean.3516 wrote: »
    Believe it or not I'm not asking you to do anything for the rich people.

    Except maintain a system that squeezes wealth upwards to the few. Does anyone really believe a Billionaire property speculator is worth a million Nurses? They are like fuck.

    As political economist Mark Blythe said 'The Hamptons is not a defensible position, eventually they'll come for you'.


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    #206
    Sean.3516
    Registered Users Posts: 861 ✭✭✭Sean.3516


    KyussB wrote: »
    Unless you count breast augmentation as an 'essential public service', there is no reason for the public services to do it.
    My point wasn't that breast augmentation should be publicly available along with chemotherapy but rather that chemotherapy should be privately available along with breast augmentation.
    KyussB wrote: »
    Anything that is essential, should be 100% public, with no private option - as that's the only way to ensure a fair health system.
    There, someone's finally honest enough to admit how much they despise the middle class and rich.

    You're admitting that it doesn't matter if someone wants to pay for healthcare at their own expense. The very fact that the healthcare is better than what the public system can provide means they shouldn't be allowed to do it. Talk about class bitterness. You're willing the sacrifice quality for equality. You realise you're a communistic argument? Perhaps you'd like everybody employed by the state then. Why should someone be allowed to take a higher wage in the private sector if that wage is higher than that of the people working in public sector?

    Personally I regard fairness as first and foremost allowing people the right to own and alienate their labor and their capital. If I wish to invest my capital in say building a healthcare service that people can voluntarily choose to join, that's my right. If I wish to invest the fruits of my own labor in buying that service, that's my right. If I'm a doctor who's willing to work for the person who built that service and they're willing to pay me, that's my right.
    KyussB wrote: »
    When those paying for the private health system, and those who own the private health system, are made to use the public system exclusively - then you'll quickly see the public system get the funding and reform it needs.
    How? Seriously, how? I mean it's not like you've increased the funding for the system. The people you've now forced into the system were already paying taxes before.

    If the idea is "well if we force these rich and powerful people into eating the same crap as everyone else, then maybe they'll use their wealth and power to improve the system." Well guess what? They've already done it. It's called private healthcare. Because it turns out that good quality healthcare costs a lot. You need a lot of people to invest money in it. Since people don't give away money for free you need an incentive for them them to do so. Like a return on the investment. Where does that come from? Profit. Yes, this is called "The Profit Incentive" and it's responsible for every major technological development of the past 200 years.
    And no, you can't just raise taxes because there is a finite amount of taxable income before you drive people away (the rich can afford airline tickets).
    KyussB wrote: »
    A private system competing to hire healthcare workers out of the public system, or generally paying healthcare workers more than the public system does, absolutely is in competition with the public system.
    Yes, I acknowledged this. What's your solution? Slavery? Earn a medical degree and become an indentured servant?
    KyussB wrote: »
    Private health individuals do use the public system, as well. They buy their way into preferential treatment in the public system. An additional reason why there must be no crossover in services between the public and private health systems.
    If by "buy their way in" you mean they're paying for it, why can't the public system use that money to increase their own capacity? The public system is non for profit, what else would they use it for.
    KyussB wrote: »
    Public monopoly's are a completely normal thing - deployed only in areas they are deemed necessary, for the public good
    Why though? The private system does not undercut the public system in terms of cost. Why is it necessary to force people who were a net asset to the public system to become a burden on it? By that I mean, they were paying for it even though they weren't using it and now they're paying for it and they are using it. How is this not a relative loss for the public system?

    Why is this for the public good? Well we know the answer. As you've stated your goal is first and foremost to ensure everyone receives the same standard of care regardless of quality.
    KyussB wrote: »
    - those that don't like it have the freedom to move somewhere else
    People have the freedom to leave the country but not to do what they like with their own labor and their own property. If you really want people to emigrate they will you know.
    KyussB wrote: »
    because they certainly don't have the freedom to buy their way into preferential treatment in every area of life.
    It's not preferential treatment if I pay extra in order to receive extra.


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    #207
    Sean.3516
    Registered Users Posts: 861 ✭✭✭Sean.3516


    Junkyard Tom wrote: »
    Except maintain a system that squeezes wealth upwards to the few.
    The disproportionate ownership of wealth is a good thing for the world. Rich people are the ones who create employment, who invest in new products and services that make your life better.

    If I had to decide to either donate €35,000,000 to the people of Ireland (about €7 each) so they could each go buy a Big Mac and a Diet Coke or donate the whole €35,000,000 to Denis O'Brien based on what would benefit the people of Ireland more, I'd pick Denis O'Brien every time.

    I can either have everyone buy themselves one Big Mac and Coke, the 35 mill goes to McDonald's some of it is taxed. Or Denis O'Brien can invest it in a way that is likely to help lead to the creation of new companies, products and services, new jobs. The economic impact may allow each person in Ireland to afford more hamburgers per annum than if I simply bought each person a hamburger.
    Junkyard Tom wrote: »
    Does anyone really believe a Billionaire property speculator is worth a million Nurses? They are like fuck.
    What does this is even mean? What a low resolution statement. In terms of economic output, the property speculator is probably worth more while in terms of moral worth, the nurses.
    Junkyard Tom wrote: »
    As political economist Mark Blythe said 'The Hamptons is not a defensible position, eventually they'll come for you'.
    A stich in time saves nine.
    A broken clock is right twice a day.
    All things come to he who waits.

    Wait, what?


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    #208
    Geuze
    Registered Users Posts: 13,086 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    [HTML][/HTML]
    Charles Babbage wrote: »
    They haven't done very well at this, as many are on salaries lower than 12 years ago.

    That is not true.

    PS pay restoration has happened.

    Maybe not in full for the high earners, but for anybody under 35k all the pay cuts have been restored.


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    #209
    KyussB
    Registered Users Posts: 2,314 ✭✭✭KyussB


    We're in a Socially Democratic Europe - not the US - so people can spare me the 'communist' bollocks, and piss off back to watching Fox News :rolleyes:

    There's no country on earth where money is free to buy you whatever you like, without restriction, and without there being some public monopolies.


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    #210
    Junkyard Tom
    Registered Users Posts: 10,117 ✭✭✭✭Junkyard Tom


    Sean.3516 wrote: »
    The disproportionate ownership of wealth is a good thing for the world. Rich people are the ones who create employment, who invest in new products and services that make your life better.

    Utter bullshit, what are you some sort of randroid? Jobs create rich people, not the other way round.

    Wealth doesn't trickle down - it gets squeezed up. If the rich created jobs then why do we have recessions? Have you ever actually tried thinking through the shite you're saying?


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    #211
    IAMAMORON
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    KyussB wrote: »
    We're in a Socially Democratic Europe - not the US - so people can spare me the 'communist' bollocks, and piss off back to watching Fox News :rolleyes:

    There's no country on earth where money is free to buy you whatever you like, without restriction, and without there being some public monopolies.

    Your slipping down the respectability slope now. I doubt An Post workers who pay VHI and wake up at 3.30 am every morning are watching Fox News either. But they have the wit to pay for private healthcare.

    Dress it up anyway you like, I have read the tripe you have posted. Totalitarianism does not work, it never has and never will.

    Why would you associate or prescribe :P yourself a future where a government has complete control over your welfare? Why would you want to do that to yourself? Furthermore, why do think government involvement is necessary at all, at any level?


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