Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----other proposals with regard to full cost charge for patients being treated in public beds. Let us park the argument about the shortage of money, the inability of the Minister for Health to balance last year's books and his having to obtain a loan from the health insurance companies to tide him over and sort out overdrafts for hospitals.

The real reason the Government is proposing to charge full cost for private patients in public beds is nothing more or less than a finance raising mechanism. This is not about taking away subsidies from health insurance companies; it is about charging customers of health insurance companies. Their universal entitlement to be treated in a hospital is something which those on the other side of the House espouse. Under the Government's proposal one will be treated in a hospital, but if one stays in a public bed one will be charged the full cost. The Minister pretends the insurance companies will pay for it but this is not correct. The premium holders will do so because the insurance companies will be obligated to pass it back to them because they cannot run deficits. They are obligated to keep a reserve and legislation is in place to ensure this is the case. Yes they will make profits, but this is not about removing a subsidy; it is about double taxation and attacking a fundamental right to free health care at the point of need in a public hospital. That is what this is about.

If some consultants are sending people through the system and charging them even though they are being treated in a public bed the Government should deal with this and there are other ways to do so. This blanket decision to penalise on the double for going to a public hospital every person who has worked hard, paid their taxes and decided to take out private health insurance to protect them and provide for their health care is unacceptable in my view and should be unacceptable in the view of the Minister of State. If he espouses universal health insurance, this attempt the Government is making at the start of the process suggests it will be very unfair for much of middle Ireland who pay their taxes and try to provide for themselves and their families. At one fell swoop the Government is telling them they must pay twice to be treated. Being asked to do this is the most mean-spirited attack I have seen in recent years on people who make an effort and work hard to provide for themselves.

We supported the Health Insurance (Amendment) Act. We were proponents of risk equalisation and we saw the necessity for it. We were led to believe there would be two types of plans, non-advanced and advanced. During the discussions in the Chamber we were led to believe the Health Insurance Authority would deem 47 plans as non-advanced and they would avoid the higher levy. The legislation has been passed and now it transpires there are no non-advanced plans and all of the health insurers will now have to design them. The important point to be made is with regard to people who are already under huge financial pressure in trying to retain health insurance, who have been reducing their cover and barely hanging on. This will force health insurance companies to drop benefits and certain cover for the lower plans to ensure they are non-advanced. The same people who will have to avail of these non-advanced plans will then have to pay for some of the services that will be provided if they go into a private hospital. With another fell swoop the Government is asking people who can barely afford health insurance to subsidise those who can afford higher premiums and higher insurance cover, or the Rolls-Royce five-star private health insurance. It is a direct transfer of wealth from the poorest in terms of private health insurance to those who can afford it most. The Minister of State knows this is completely wrong. He knows it is unfair and anathema to everything for which most people in the Chamber stand. I suggest it is something with which the Minister of State certainly does not agree.

In fairness to the Minister for Health, he is often wrong but never doubts himself. How could he have come in here on Second Stage and stated there would be 47 non-advanced plans which would avoid the high levy because he was so concerned about those on the lower reaches of private health insurance who were barely hanging on to it? The legislation has been passed and what do we get? There are no non-advanced plans. This must be revisited because what will happen is that MRI scans and many other benefits which were in the lower plans will now be removed to qualify for the lower levy, which will mean those who can barely afford it will have to pay more out of their pockets for treatments in private hospitals.

There is a view that those with private health insurance are queue jumpers who buy themselves a place ahead of those in the public hospital system. The vast majority of elective surgeries are carried out in private hospitals. If one has private health cover one is not taking a bed from somebody in a public hospital because most elective surgery is done in private hospitals which have no contact with the Exchequer or public patients. If people really wanted to support and help the public hospital system because of the difficulties in which it finds itself, as many people as possible should be encouraged to take out private health insurance so they would lighten the burden on the public hospital system. This is what the Minister for Health proposes in his universal health insurance policy. I have stated before, and will do so again, that the Minister, Deputy Reilly, and his party sat in opposition for 14 years and came up with grand plans and great schemes. I would have assumed that on taking office, although his party did so with wild outlandish promises as did the Labour Party, he would have had some blueprint in his mind for universal health insurance based on a particular model. We have had the Dutch model and every other model-----

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