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

I will finish now. When the Minister and the Government spoke before Christmas about how we spend more than everyone else in Europe on health, what was not unravelled was how much of it is in private health insurance and charges. In fact, it is about 25% or 30% of overall expenditure. This is second only, probably, to the United States, where approximately 40% of health expenditure is on billing, profit taking, advertising and administration and is not going to the front line. What do we need? We need to get rid of private health insurance in the public health system and we need a State insurance firm that is driven not by profit but by the aim of having reasonable insurance costs and that is not profiteering at the expense of ordinary citizens.

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