Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On entering office in 2011, the centrepiece of the Government's health policy was the introduction of universal health insurance. It has taken three years for the Government to publish a White Paper on the matter, which it did yesterday. Unfortunately, however, that White Paper has given rise to more questions than it has answers in respect of universal health insurance. It does not, for example, indicate what will be the cost of universal health insurance for individual families and the State or what health services will be covered. Neither does it outline the income threshold that will determine whether someone will pay his or her own health insurance or whether the State will pay it for him or her. It is becoming increasingly clear that universal health insurance is going to be another tax on middle Ireland. It will be a further tax on working families which have already been put to the pin of their collar to get by financially. In essence, it will be a tax on the people who already pay for everything in this country.

Reading between the lines of what is contained in the White Paper and parsing what the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, said yesterday, it seems quite clear that the current tax relief on health insurance policies from which people benefit is going to be cut and will probably be phased out altogether by the Government. When one considers that this will be in addition to the complete abolition of mortgage interest relief by 2017, it is clear middle income families are looking at a double whammy of tax hikes. The elimination of tax relief on health insurance policies and the abolition of mortgage interest relief will give rise to an increase of approximately €700 million in the amount of tax paid by middle income families during the next five years.

The Minister for Health has stated that no one will be obliged to pay anything extra under the new system of universal health insurance. There is no basis whatsoever for that assertion, which has been contradicted by the assessment carried out by the Department run by his colleague in government, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, in respect of universal health insurance. When will families be presented with a clear picture of what universal health insurance is going to cost them and when will we be made aware of what will be the exact role played by health insurers in the context of their control of the health service in the future?

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