Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Arís eile, tá Bille os ár gcomhair a dhéanann iarracht fadhbanna an chórais sláinte a leigheas. Is oth liom a rá go mbaineann an Bille seo le hathrú beag a dhéanamh ar an gcóras seo, a bhfuil dhá léibhéal ann - léibhéal amháin dóibh siúd a bhfuil airgead acu agus léibhéal eile dóibh siúd nach bhfuil airgead acu.

This legislation represents an updating of the regulatory regime for the health insurance sector in this State. Some of the Bill continues what I acknowledge, as the health delivery system currently is structured, is the necessary system of community rating, which helps to ensure that consumers are charged the same premium for a particular plan regardless of age, gender or health status, thus preventing price discrimination against those more likely to require medical treatment. Unfortunately, it also is but a way of propping up the ailing health system. Members still await details of the Government's long-promised universal health insurance proposals. In the interim, many people continue to take out private health insurance because they cannot rely on the health service when they or their loved ones are unwell and this in itself is a tragedy.

As I have stated previously on this issue, as long as the type of health insurance market and the type of health funding system that exist in this State are retained, the regulatory regime provided for in this Bill will be necessary. It involves a complex system of risk equalisation to support the community rating principle. This entails the transfer of compensation from insurers who carry lighter risk burdens to those who carry heavier risk burdens. All this requires regulation, monitoring, enforcement and as provided for in this Bill. Without such legislation, the unregulated market would discriminate against the old, the sick or any other group or individuals which insurance companies decided were a greater risk. The legislation therefore is supposed to be a protection against the working out of the raw profit motive in the health insurance sector. It is supposed to be based on solidarity between generations and between the healthy and the sick. This is welcome, in so far as it goes.

However, we in Sinn Féin would go much further in extending the principle of solidarity to the way the entire health care system is funded, organised, structured and managed and I will return to this point later.

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