Sir, — I have recently immigrated to Ireland, in part to escape from Obamacare, the health system in the United States.
Now I see that Irish Ministers are proposing Universal Health Insurance (UHI) for Ireland. This suffers from the same deficiencies as Obamacare in the US. Indeed the two plans are identical in their core essentials, which require that everyone will be a private patient, everyone will be required to buy health insurance and the government will promise to subsidise insurance for the poor.
This is not the same as single-payer, universal health care. Like Obamacare, the UHI scheme is a gift to private, for-profit insurance companies, providing them with a captive market of customers who will pay to enrich those at the top. And those at the top of insurance companies are not even in the public sector; this is the private sector.
Both America’s Obamacare and Ireland’s proposed UHI are policies to enrich insurance CEOs, by herding the population like sheep into buying from the private sector even when they are unwilling to do so voluntarily. That is the opposite of freedom.
France, Germany and Canada are among the states which have shown that a single-payer model can be a viable solution. Ireland should consider that model, and Irish people should fight for it.
At the end of day, insurance from the private sector is a sociopathic business model, driven by the profit motive, and only two roads lead to increased profits: charge more, and pay out less. That is Ireland’s future if UHI goes ahead. I have seen this movie before, and I can already tell you that in the next act the system deteriorates.
To fight against this loss of freedom and choice, Irish people should fight for single-payer health care. Yours, etc,
JOHN PATRICK KUSUMI ,
High Street ,
Tuam ,
Co Galway