The largest survey of its kind in the State has found 95 per cent of people want the Government to spend more on public health to reduce waiting lists and improve services.
The survey, Perceptions of the Quality of Health Care in the Public Private Sectors in Ireland, was commissioned by the Centre for Insurance Studies, Graduate Business School, UCD, and funded by the private health insurer, BUPA.
The survey of 3,000 households by the Economic and Social Research Institute confirms the majority of Irish people are unhappy with the public health service, particularly with the marked differences in waiting times between public patients and those with private insurance. One in 15 people covered by the GMS is on a waiting list, compared to one in 50 of those with private health insurance, according to the ESRI report.
Those surveyed believe waiting times are longer now than they were three years ago.
Three-fifths (57 per cent) judge the public health system as merely "adequate", "bad" or "very bad", the survey, which has been seen by The Irish Times, demonstrates.
The survey findings indicate "there is considerable criticism of the overall quality of care in the public health system, with fewer than half of respondents giving it a positive rating". Only two-fifths of Irish people (43 per cent) regard the public health service as "good" or "very good", compared to one in three (34 per cent) who consider it "adequate" and one in four (23 per cent) who deem the service "bad or very bad".
The overwhelming majority (83 per cent) regard the private system as "good or very good". Nine out of 10 people (88 per cent) believe private patients get hospital care more quickly.
Six out of 10 people (62 per cent) are convinced that if they needed hospital treatment, they would receive better care in the private system. Four out of 10 (38 per cent) believe there would be no difference.
Waiting times for people with private health insurance are substantially shorter than for those in the GMS sector or those with no cover, the ESRI confirms. A total of 20 per cent of GMS members and 21 per cent of those with no cover say they had to wait more than one month for hospitalisation. The comparable figure for those with private insurance is 9 per cent.
Better educated and higher earning people have far worse views of the health service. Those in the professional and managerial social group are most critical, with only one in three (33 per cent) giving the public health service a positive rating, in contrast to one in two (49 per cent) of the skilled and unskilled manual social group.
Six out of every 10 people who had been hospitalised as public patients during the past year gave their care a positive rating. Among those who had been hospitalised as private patients, only 36 per cent rated the public health system positively.
"Perceptions of the quality of care in the public health system are not high. But those who are most likely to have used the public health system have a more positive view of it. This may be due to lack of accurate information on the part of young adults and those in more advantaged social groups, or it may reflect differences in respect to expectations," the ESRI report concludes.
But where waiting lists are concerned, the situation is reversed: people who use the public service are more critical than those with private cover.
Half the population (52 per cent) believe compulsory private medical insurance is the way to improve funding of the public health service. Slightly more, 62 per cent, believe private health insurance should be compulsory for those on higher incomes.