Government’s health insurance model is a textbook case of flawed policy making

Analysis in the Irish Independent on 18 November 2015

This Government promised universal healthcare its 2011 Programme for Government. It said everybody would have free GP care by 2016, and compulsory universal health insurance would start in 2016 and be completed by 2019.

Straight-talking Leo must come clean on UHI cost

Column from Irish Independent on 1 July 2015.

Health minister Leo Varadkar is known for his straight-talking. But he is not being totally candid in relation to the cost of his own government’s Universal Health Insurance (UHI) policy. He is choosing not to publish detailed costings presented to him on May 21, 2015, which shows the Government’s model is overly expensive.

The ESRI costings, seen by the Irish Independent, reveal that Government’s flagship health project of UHI as promised in the Programme for Government would cost between 3.5pc and 10.7pc more than the current system. Critically, they find that the main drivers of the high costs would be the insurance companies’ profits and the fact that there would be multiple payers for healthcare in the form of competing health insurance companies.

Labour’s health policy, how it differs from Fine Gael, and what Sinn Fein are proposing

Yet to blog but if you want to hear today’s health slot, click on here and scroll down to ‘Drivetime with Mary Wilson: Thursday, February 10 (6.40-7pm)’ and press play, its the first item up…