New US agency will help to lower health spending
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore and Health Minister Mary Harney at the 'Financing Universal Healthcare in Ireland' conference at the Davenport Hotel, Dublin, yesterday.
IRELAND will be able to benefit from a new agency to be set up in the US aimed at controlling health costs, US President Barack Obama's health adviser told a conference in Dublin yesterday.
Dr Ezekiel J Emanuel, an oncologist who now works in the White House, said the agency would be part of the package of healthcare reforms the US president had succeeded in pushing through.
Ireland and other countries will be able to draw on the findings of the new Patient Centre Outcomes Research Institute which will compare the benefits and costs of various treatments.
Dr Emanuel said it could examine various forms of treatments for cancer or blood pressure and decide which ones are effective and which are not.
They will be able to compare the price of treatments and decide which of the less expensive ones are as effective as the those which cost more. "It should start in the next 12 months," he told the conference, 'Financing Universal Healthcare in Ireland -- The Way Forward'.
He said the US was spending $2.53 trillion (€1.86 trillion) a year on health, and the bill was continuing to soar.
Dr Emanuel was speaking at the conference, which was organised by the Department of Health and Primary Care in Trinity College and the Adelaide Hospital Society, which explored the possibility of introducing a system of universal health insurance in Ireland aimed at ending the two-tier system here.
Universal health insurance would see everyone on the same footing with equal access to doctors and hospitals. The less well-off would pay no premiums or would have their care subsidised.
However, Health Minister Mary Harney rejected calls for Ireland to move to universal social insurance to fund hospitals and care.
"What matters most is how resources are used, not how resources are raised from the public," she said.
The Adelaide Hospital Society said current spending on healthcare could be diverted to social health insurance for all with everyone entitled to a "common basket" of services free of charge -- GP care, medicines and acute hospital care.
Such cover had been costed at €1,314 a year extra for a married couple earning €70,000 a year and €207 extra a year for a single person on an annual salary of €25,000.
Consultants
Opponents of Ms Harney's healthcare policies have blamed her for the creation of a two-tier healthcare system where public and private hospitals share the same grounds.
They also criticised consultants being allowed to treat private and public patients.
But, addressing the conference, Ms Harney insisted "a pure one-tier system" was not on offer.
"The agenda we are leading in Government now for health policy contains many key elements that are, in fact, common to all systems of healthcare, no matter how they are financed," she added.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the public had lost trust in the health service.
He vowed to introduce FairCare within 30 days of getting into Government to end the two-tier public versus private healthcare system over five years.
"What we are setting out to do is change -- utterly and forever -- the core thrust of the Irish healthcare system," the Fine Gael leader said.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said there was a broad consensus growing in support of universal health insurance.
"As long as hospitals and consultants are paid differently for public and private patients, the incentive will always be to prioritise revenue-raising private patients," Mr Gilmore said.
- Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent
Irish Independent
