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Health, Welfare and Sport: affordable health care now and later

News item | 16-09-2003

Over the next few years central government's role in health care will decline. A reform of the system will give greater responsibility to institutions, municipalities, insurers and individual consumers.

This emerges from the Ministry's budget for 2004. The Minister and State Secretary are preparing to make sweeping changes in 2006, when a new healthcare system will be introduced. In the intervening years, measures must be taken to ensure that health care remains affordable.

Measures in 2004
In the short term, measures will be required to reduce public spending and to release funding to deal with shortfalls in provision.

Measures directed at care institutions and providers will release €1 billion in 2004. They will include cutting bonuses paid to dispensing chemists (€432 million), pay restraint (€108 million) and reducing sickness absence among care workers (€70 million).

Giving individuals, care providers and care insurers greater responsibility for their own affairs should produce greater cost-consciousness. Care providers and insurers are expected to become more efficient and consumer-oriented. The government hopes to encourage individual consumers to show greater responsibility by reducing the cover provided by the state-funded insurance scheme (saving €900 million) and introducing a limited system of personal contributions (€400 million).

Extra resources will be earmarked to achieve a further reduction in waiting lists, with priority being given to patients awaiting treatment for cancer and heart disease.

New healthcare system in 2006
The new healthcare system that comes into force in 2006 will eliminate the present distinction between state-funded and private insurance schemes. Instead there will be a single compulsory standard insurance for curative care.