Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The point has been made and I accept that the Minister for Health is the one responsible for this. We all subscribe to the principle of risk equalisation but the question arises of where this is heading and how it links in with the Government's objective of universal health insurance, particularly given the failing model of The Netherlands which the Government previously held up as an example. That is not much spoken about now because the system is becoming very problematic and unpopular in Holland. The most developed example of a place where private health insurance companies dominate the provision of health care is the United States. There is a big financial issue for the State in that the US spends more than any other country in the world on health but 40% of that money is spent on administration because of the predominance of private health insurers competing among themselves and having very developed structures for billing people, essentially gouging money out of people. Where is this leading? What model are we trying to adopt when it comes to providing health care? Is private health insurance the way forward? I have major questions about it.