Ireland's Hospitals owned by the Rich

sheesh wrote: »

are you a brand new person?

you are taking the piss!

Yeah unusual thoughts to say the least. The state does have investments in businesses but private hospitals would be a strange one and quite unethical if the state had a interventionist management role in them.

Tea Shock wrote: »

What has it got to do with the FG Government?

There is definitely connections with FG party and Denis O'Brien. A tribunal found him guilty of paying a FG minister (Lowry) for mobile phone licence.

He was standing beside FG leader and Taoiseach (Enda) when he had the honour of ringing the bell at New York stock exchange.

Im sure if your willing to dig you could find more connections.

purifol0 wrote: »

I'm fairly shocked that the OP wants to take a shot at the private hospitals! The HSE & all the health care unions including the beloved nurses have destroyed the public system and all but bankrupted the country. Its a massive money pit and the vast majority of that cash goes nowhere near the patients.

Or he's taking a shot at the billionaire owners who avoid paying their fair share of tax here.

Maybe we could have better public services, including health care if they did?

jobeenfitz wrote: »

Maybe this is for a different thread but there is a connection.

Some children are waiting years for a scoliosis operation, their backs end up deformed more because of the wait than the disease itself.

Not to mention the pain and hardship to the child. The stress and worry to the parents or in some case parent.

Anybody who has seen the documentary's will understand.

It costs more to try to fix the damage later because of the years of wait.

Then we have people who own billions, tens of billions, who employ accountants to avoid paying tax, paying a fraction in a tax shelter.

Big companies not paying their fair share of taxes, employing accountants to find tax shelters.

These same billionaires paying close to minimum wage in a lot of cases.

Its all tied in. The system is broken. Too many billionaires with enough money to own hundreds of hospital and billions of people around the world struggling for adequate health care.

Then we have the "I'm fine Jack, choir boys" defending the super rich, and the system.

Its a sad world.

its more than a sad world, its a really fcuked up world, if wealth accumulation far exceeds providing adequate health care for all

purifol0 wrote: »

The last govt dumped more money in the HSE than any other govt we ever had, yet trolley numbers just rose and rose.


No private sector tax payer would advocate ever putting more into the HSE.

Yes I agree with your point on putting more money into the HSE, that doesn't take from the fact that we need super rich people and companies to pay their fair amount or systems collapse.

purifol0 wrote: »

jobeenfitz wrote: »

Never said they shouldn't. But this thread is about the OP wanting to nationalise the private hospitals. If they did that the HSE would take them over and then citizens would have to go abroad to get appointments because the public system is unfit for purpose. And a major cause is the unions within it blocking reform at every turn.

Government has some responsibility here too, FF and Mary Harney(PD) gave us the HSE to solve our health crises, things seemed to have got worse since.

Like I said we need a fair system and a competent government to fix our health system. Just because the HSE is unable to get value for the money doesn't mean we give up. We fix it.

Everybody can't afford to go abroad for operations.

There is also questions to be answered if people like O'brien and Goodman are owners of hospitals IMO.

If your in the business of improving ppl's lives in the most important respect of all i.e health, and do that well, even saving ppl's lives sometimes, then if anyone deserves to be rich in a capitalist world, they do.

To be fair, I was on the waiting list a few years for a procedure and eventually the govt ended up sending me to the Blackrock Clinic for it. Lovely hospital, but I actually got worse treatment than in a public hospital. The ironing.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Food is even more essential than healthcare. Do you want to nationalise all the supermarkets too?

They could sell government cheese.

LuasSimon wrote: »

Like many i wouldn't have known that all these private hospitals ( blackrock,galway clinic etc ) seem to be owned by our own Oligarch rich like Larry Goodman and Denis O Brien.

When will these people ever have enough wealth and to make it worse they wont pay tax in this country, preferring to pay a micky mouse percentage in Luxembourg or Malta. What good are these people to Ireland, fine they will rent out their hospitals at the minute but how much are they pocketing out of it ( more Millions?). These rich seem to be very cosy with the Fine Gael government .

Is it any wonder so many are only existing in this country when a small number of people measure their wealth in Billions and essentially have the vast majority of the country's wealth, theres very little left for the rest of the population.

Goodman only bought into the Blackrock/Galway Clinics recently.

The two previous owners are the Sheehan brothers, there was a falling out of some sorts.

All well reported.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Private hospitals should be nationalised and future ones outlawed. It's as simple as that. Nobody should own hospitals other than the state and they should serve no purpose other than serving the public as best they can.

Note that in the German and French systems, with most of the population covered by health insurance, the provision of healthcare is left to various providers.

State
for profit
not-for profit.

LuasSimon wrote: »

Just seems mad the wealth of some alleged Irish people owning the country’s hospitals and won’t pay tax in this country despite-the fact they are worth billions . The same Larry goodman then pays his staff in meat plant peanuts ie minimum wage for a very demanding physical job .cant even get Irish people to do it
Could these rich people not pay people a bit more and pay tax in this country and better the lot of our country for us all .
Why are some people so greedy , Will Larry good man or Denis o brien not be happy until they have all the money in Ireland ?

The answer is simple.

Change the 183 day rule.

https://www.revenue.ie/en/jobs-and-pensions/tax-residence/how-to-know-if-you-are-resident-for-tax-purposes.aspx

KyussB wrote: »

Due to that, the best way to ensure it is in the interests of the wealthy, to have proper public health services - and thus for this to be properly reflected in politics, even when it is corrupted by those with power/wealth - is to ensure that public health services are the ONLY health services available.

I say that as someonee with private health insurance, and relatives who've benefited from the same.

This implies a totalitarian State.

NewRed2 wrote: »

Come back to us after you do and explain to us why a state with a 100% public health service needs to be totalitarian.


We both know you're wrong.

You are implying that all healthcare: every GP, every consultant, every dentist, every hosp, to be owned and operated by the State?

I suspect only Cuba and North Korea are like that?

Wanderer78 wrote: »

its more than a sad world, its a really fcuked up world, if wealth accumulation far exceeds providing adequate health care for all

We have never come closer to providing adequate healthcare to all. Parts of the world that hadnt seen a European 150 years ago now have modern hospitals. There are hundreds of medical metrics that show health has never been better. The direction isnt always one way but mostly it is.

There is a zero evidence that private health is hurting Irish healthcare. Again every metric shows that healthcare is improving here all the time.

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

We have never come closer to providing adequate healthcare to all. Parts of the world that hadnt seen a European 150 years ago now have modern hospitals. There are hundreds of medical metrics that show health has never been better. The direction isnt always one way but mostly it is.

There is a zero evidence that private health is hurting Irish healthcare. Again every metric shows that healthcare is improving here all the time.

there plenty of evidence to support that our health care systems are both improving and dis-improving at the same time. i.e. elements of our systems are improving, while other elements are dis-improving, at the same time. the most obvious element of dis-improving is 'access', its important to realise, this is sometimes highly subjective, meaning there are at times poor, if not, no metrics to support this belief. it can however sometimes be blatantly obvious theres access problems, the american system is potentially the most privatized system in the world, and its also well known, many americans have poor, if not, effectively no health care cover, because they simply cant afford it. it is known, that some that have been in emergency situations, have pleaded not for ambulances to be called, because they simply cannot afford it. this is where share holder value becomes disturbing! at what point does share holder value trump access? this is now getting to a disturbing level in america, that life expectancy is now falling in parts of america, and this is partly due to the 'inefficiencies' of the market in supplying their nation with some of its most critical of needs, particularly access to adequate health care for all of its citizens.

to bring it back to ireland, is our rising trolley numbers, serious delays etc etc, signs of dis-improvement in our system as a whole, i think so, what do you think?

theres an element of privatization that in fact behaves almost parasitic, its feds on us, its ultimate aim is to extract, and in this case, extract profits and wealth, preventing us from providing ourselves with our most critical of needs, this is also obvious in one of our other critical needs, housing. there is something highly dysfunctional with elements of privatization that has been occurring in our most modern of capitalist ideology, that is in fact highly dangerous for us all, including for the wealthy, it is causing a complex destabilization of our most critical of needs, politically, socially, economically environmentally, etc etc etc. share holder value, and the neoliberial/neoclassical model is failing, we must acknowledge this, and do something about it now

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

You're literally fulfilling the criteria of the continuum fallacy.

The continuum fallacy ... is the fallacy of assuming that the existence of a continuum of possible states between two binary positions means that said positions are not meaningfully different. It is a form of equivocation: treating as equivalent two things that should not be treated as such.

Is there something wrong with your brain?

Apart from the pseudo-intelectual bull**** what about the substantial point?


Are people free to spend their own money as they want or not? We do not spend on tobacco or holidays, we spend a very minimal amount on alcohol and we share one budget car for the household. But we are prepared to spend on private health care. Should we be barred from doing so? Should private health care providers be barred from offering us this service?


By the way, we pay all of our taxes, so we are paying our share towards the public system. In so far as we use private health care, which we pay for ourselves, we are saving demand on the public system - an indirect subsidy.