Healthcare plan that literally fails to add up

NOBODY, least of the Irish Daily Mail, would argue against the need for sweeping changes to the delivery of healthcare in this country. It has been clear for many years now that the system simply isn’t working. Worse than that, it is practically broken. None of the many attempts at reform have worked.

Against that backdrop, the report published last summer by the Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare made for interesting reading. Its main proposal was for the introduction of a free universal health service along the lines of Britain’s NHS.

There is certainly a case to be made for bringing in such a system. After all, it promises the sort of things we can only dream about as things stand: free GP care for everyone, free hospital treatment, reduced prescription charges and a 12week limit on waiting times for surgery.

But as this newspaper highlighted at the time, the figures didn’t add up. When the plan was announced, it was widely reported that it would amount to a total of €2.8billion spread out over a ten-year period.

But, as we pointed out last June, if it was effectively to cost just €280million a year, why wasn’t it done sooner?

The answer was already clear by that stage. Our investigation into the plan had revealed that it would actually cost an extra €2.8billion every year on top of existing health spending.

Now the Irish Hospital Consultants Association has reached a similar conclusion and described the initial figures for the socalled Sláintecare project as a ‘gross underestimate’. According to the association, the plan would cost €20billion in the first decade, with the outlay rising to €28billion plus interest in each of the following decades.

None of this inspires much confidence in the members of the Oireachtas committee or, indeed, their report. Given that they managed to get the basic arithmetic so badly wrong, it is difficult to have much faith in the remainder of their findings.

Everyone agrees that we need a properly functioning health service, but there must be full transparency on how much it will cost. After decades of watching successive health ministers throwing good money after bad, taxpayers deserve no less.