The Reunification Of Ireland Could It Happen Sooner Than We Think

[carosio]

Well, that's speculation, and if the Labour Party assume government then I'm sure the NHS will continue to be free for all?

 

The fact (as I read it) is that there is a charge for GP visits in Eire, also hospital emergency visits. There are exempions such as people on low incomes.

 

"There are no set fees or charges in Ireland for GP services. A typical GP visit fee is €60 – some charge as much as €70 some may charge as little as €40."

[L00b]

1 hour ago, carosio said:

Well, that's speculation, and if the Labour Party assume government then I'm sure the NHS will continue to be free for all?

It’s informed speculation.

 

The NHS has been under relentless attack by successive governments’ lack of policies and resourcing for years, has been short of tens of thousands of healthcare professionals at all levels for a good couple of years now (whilst haemorrhaging healthcare staff all along), and is now approaching criticality of service continuity in several Trusts, with record-high hospital admission levels and staff shortages through illness on the back of (Covid-) “Freedom Day” driving the final few nails in it.

The recent polls putting the general public’s displeasure with the NHS at an historical high, translates a policy goal, it is not an indication of policy failure.

 

The Labour Party has about as much chance of assuming government in the next few years, as Putin has of earning this year’s Nobel Peace prize.

1 hour ago, carosio said:

The fact (as I read it) is that there is a charge for GP visits in Eire, also hospital emergency visits. There are exempions such as people on low incomes.

 

"There are no set fees or charges in Ireland for GP services. A typical GP visit fee is €60 – some charge as much as €70 some may charge as little as €40."

Start here: 

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/health_system/entitlement_to_public_health_services.html

and then follow the links.

 

It’s broadly the same system of means tested subsidised healthcare as in many other European countries, wherein people pay some or all of their healthcare expenses and get refunded some or all of those after-the-fact, unless the State subsidising kicks in earlier, according to their means.

 

We pay for GP visits here in Luxembourg. We get 100% refunded when it’s our kid, otherwise 75%. With a Westfield-like health scheme, we get the 25% balance back. Prescriptions are subsidised at the till, so a prescribed medicine costing e.g. €50 is sold at e.g. €5. Dental treatment is subsidised on application: get the dentist quote, run it by the Health Authority, get public funding authorisation for x to 100% according to preset tables for the condition/work.

 

Same principle in e.g. France.

 

And I’d argue that it’s a better system, in that it keeps people from becoming too entitled. Patients value the medical advice received and tend not to take up valuable GP time (never mind A&E) for a grazed knee or a common cold.

 

Still, and for all its faults, that’s why this free-everything-at-the-point-of-delivery that is the NHS is such a wonderful thing, worth every political fight and argument. And that’s why the British public enduring passivity about what the Tories have been doing to it, and continue to, is maddening.

 

In the RoI/NI reunification context, it’s a trivial issue.

Edited April 5, 2022 by L00b