Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I never said anything should be abandoned in regard to community rating. The Taoiseach deliberately threw that out there to distract and to go down a cul-de-sac. That is a very dishonest presentation by him. That is fair enough; we are used to that.

The bottom line is if he is sincere about maintaining community rating, the haemorrhage cannot go on. Government policies are driving the haemorrhage from the system. A total of 64,000 people left the health insurance market in 2012. It is estimated 75,000 will leave by the end of 2013. Does the Taoiseach honestly think that increasing fees by reducing tax relief and charging for the utilisation of public beds by health insurance holders, even though they pay their taxes, will help community rating? Anybody who knows anything about the health insurance market is talking in terms of a death spiral, which means that when younger, healthier policyholders are taken out of the system, the burden on the older policyholders will increase to make it untenable. The centre will not hold if the haemorrhage of people from the health insurance market continues. In the meantime, the Government is making life unbearable for hard pressed families through this unfolding, incoherent, ad hoc policy.

The Minister for Health said he did not know that the Minister for Finance was going to do what he did on the taxation side of the budget and he was not consulted. That reveals the incoherence at the heart of Government policy on health and health insurance generally. Will the Taoiseach reverse the budget decision to reduce tax relief? By doing so, he would give much needed relief to people and give them some chance of holding on to their health insurance policies.

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