Gilmore says White Paper on health insurance ‘in the not too distant future’

A White Paper on the Government's proposed universal health insurance would be published "in the not too distant future'', Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore told the Dáil.

He said it would provide an opportunity for all to have an input into the discussion on how it was progressing.

He added that the process was at an early stage.

"The Department of Public Expenditure and the Department of Finance, as one would expect them to do, are doing their job, which is to probe the costings and maintain an oversight of policy in terms of its cost implications at an early stage.''

The Tánaiste was replying to Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher, who said progress to date had been minimal. There was now a situation where a funding model was being proposed by the Minister for Health, while the Ministers for Public Expenditure and Finance were cynically undermining it.

"We are depending on scraps and leaks from Government and from individual Ministers trying to undermine what is a central core principle of this Government in regard to the delivery of universal health insurance,'' said Mr Kelleher.

Labour policy
Mr Gilmore said its introduction had been Labour policy for more than a decade.

“It is something that is coming after a period of Fianna Fáil government when it showed no interest in reforming the unfair two-tier health system we have had for a long time in this country.

“It still does not, of course, which is why it has opposed the Government’s proposals to give a break to families with a medical card for their children.’’

Mr Gilmore said the Government believed people should be treated based on medical need, not on the amount of money they had in their pockets.

"We also want to change the incentives to the health system in order that the majority of people get treated in their communities and do not end up unnecessarily in accident and emergency or in a hospital bed,'' he added.

Overnight
Its introduction, said Mr Gilmore, was not going to happen overnight, and it was important to get it right. A lot of preparatory work had to be done, and the White Paper was part of that.

He said other preparatory work involved the concept of money following the patient across the public hospital system and free GP visits for those aged five and under.