Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On many occasions in this House I have raised the issue of private health insurance and its costs, not just after the most recent budget with the reduction in tax relief on policies that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, called "gold plated". Last week his Department confirmed these changes will affect 1.1 million policies not the 500,000 originally estimated. That was a major hit for those prudently paying for private health insurance. Nearly 200,000 people have given up their policies in the last three years because they cannot afford it.

Yesterday the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly announced an increase in the stamp duty on private health insurance cases by way of risk equalisation. That means an increase in policy premiums of approximately 15%. Most renewals are coming up between now and January and the Leader and everybody else here will have had people in contact about the increases in their health insurance policy costs.

Laya Healthcare managing director Mr. Dónal Clancy said, "Rather than protect the most vulnerable patients as outlined by the Minister, the levy hike will only increase the burden on an already struggling public health system.” GloHealth chief executive Mr. Jim Dowdall said, “It is farcical, bizarre and absurd that the Minister continually calls on health insurers to drive down costs when Government policies have been the overwhelming driver of rising premiums in recent years.” Mr. Dermot Goode of Cornmarket Healthcare Division said, “Consumers are going to get clobbered," and that is a fact. Mr. Goode said the changes announced by the Minister would have an inflationary effect even though the stamp duty was not levied on consumers, because insurers are likely to pass on the cost increases.

I raise this in the context of the much heralded universal health care the Minister and Government keep talking about. We have no White Paper or road map, we do not know where it is at. All the public and I see is discretionary medical cards and over 70s medical cards being removed and private health insurance premiums going through the roof forcing thousands of people to leave the system, which will put a further burden on the public health system. This is without the Minister, Deputy Reilly publishing the HSE service plan, due next week.

This situation is going from bad to worse and is at crisis point. I wonder if the Government has any knowledge or feeling for what is happening. We will have further tens of thousands of people giving up private health insurance policies. They will come into the public health system, which is already creaking. The chief executives of the main hospitals in this city have already said they are at breaking point. Where are we going? The Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly must make a statement on where he is going with universal health care. Are all these things he is doing part of the jigsaw to get us to the Dutch model? The Dutch are unpicking their system and moving back from it. I do not understand where the health plan is going.

Has the Leader a date from the Government on when it will introduce free GP care for those aged five and under? The Minister announced this as a cloak. He said he would bring it in but there was no date and no consultation with the Irish Medical Organisation or the GPs. Incredibly, the week before last, he said he would introduce free GP care for all by 2016. What planet does he live on? He will have free GP care for all because nobody will have private health insurance. I am tabling an amendment to the Order of Business today that the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, come here for one hour to give a statement on universal health care and the situation with private health insurance cover in this country. It is far too serious for us to be raising it every morning and getting no statement from the Minister.