More HSE waste of Taxpayers money - Should the health service be privatised?

Niallers said:
Should we just privatise the health service. It would at the very least cut out this type of waste.
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Are you sure? The last research I saw from the US indicated that private healthcare facilities were generally much more expensive than public facilities. When the doc knows that the more he treats you, the more he makes, he suddenly find lots of reasons for expensive tests/treatment/drugs etc.

The other problem with privatisation is that it will push basic healthcare out of reach of the 50% of the population that don't have private insurance.

I'm not condoning HSE waste, but the answer is not privatisation.
 
Yes, Yes, Yes - should be privatised.

When the doc knows that the more he treats you, the more he makes, he suddenly find lots of reasons for expensive tests/treatment/drugs etc.
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Health insurers usually put a check on excessive spending.

Shouldnt the question on this thread be changed to "Should the health service be liberalised?" People forget that we already have privatised delivery of public health services, just that it is done by a monopoly cartel (religious organisations) with no tendering and no competition.
 
Niallers said:
where patients were treated as customers then yes.
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Walked into a shop recently and asked for and got a sandwich, at the till realised I didn't have any money on me, they wouldn't let me keep the sandwich!

You want this to be expended to health care.

No thanks!
 
From reading the article, what the HSE are doing in many respects is not that dissimiler from what many large private companies do. Staff get sick, that's a fact, and on occassions, staff have long terms sick issues and given the size of the HSE, the numbers involved may not be excessive. It would be quite common for companies to pay sick pay for 6 months and then half pay for another 6 months (every major company I've worked for over the last 20 years has had similer policies)

However, it is after the 12 months that the HSE seem to be slipping up. Many large companies at this stage would have a private medical insurance scheme which would kick in and would pay a proportion of the employees wages, in the case of my current employer, they pay 66% of the wages after 12 months, employer pays nothing. Under the terms of the scheme, that can continue indefinately (assuming there is no change in the underlying condition).

Even where companies do not have such a scheme, my understanding has always been that an employer has no obligation to hold a job open indefinately for someone who cannot physically do it. Therefore, and depending on the circumstance, either resignation or redundancy would kick it

To me this has nothing to do with the merits or demerits of privitisation of the health sector. It's just crap HR management and policies by the HSE. That happens in plenty of private sector companies as well, but if the willingness is there to fix it, it's not a difficult thing to do
 

+1
 

How do you get the willingness? Should it come from Taoiseach? Minister? Head of HSE? We need a hero!
 
We need a system where the money follows the patient. It should be funded through health insurance, those that can't pay their own should have access to a state system but access to services should be equal. After that private and public hospitals can compete. The important thing is good regulation and auditing.
 
Peope join VHI and other private insurance because they know that it the only way they can get prompt treatment. If all had equal access then VHI and others would go to the wall.
 

Thing is, the government self-insure.
 
johnd said:
Peope join VHI and other private insurance because they know that it the only way they can get prompt treatment. If all had equal access then VHI and others would go to the wall.
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Not true. If all had equal access to prompt treatment, we would end up like the UK, where a small minority (10-15%) buy private insurance, because they want the nice room and the fancy biccies.

Surely you're not suggesting that we need to maintain the serious inequalities that exist in our healthcare system just to keep VHI/Quinn/Hibernian in a job? People with no insurance are dying on waiting lists.
 
johnd said:
Peope join VHI and other private insurance because they know that it the only way they can get prompt treatment. If all had equal access then VHI and others would go to the wall.
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People would still have to pay the VHI etc since the government would only pay the insurance for those who cannot afford to pay their own. The important point is that the hospitals would get paid for what they do, not a blanket payment at the start of the year. That way the money follows the patient, i.e. each patient is a source of revenue, unlike the current system where private patients are a source of revenue and public patients are a drain on revenue.
 
Complainer, that is the point I'm making. I agree with you! If we all had access to equal treatment then only a small minority would be in private health insurance because they want the silver plated tea tray or whatever the reason would be. The private insurance companies would not make enough profit to keep going. In my opinion there should be no tax relief for private health insurance.
 
johnd said:
In my opinion there should be no tax relief for private health insurance.
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The state couldn't afford that. At the moment 2/3 of the population subsidise the public health system by buying private insurance. If they didn't do so all medical services would have to be delivered using the public system. It would collapse under the strain.
 
Purple - The state already provided everyone with free hospital treatment apart from a small fee for bed and board. The reason the VHI originally came into existance was because hospital treatment was subject to a means test and if you earned over that amount you were liable for fees.

If other countries can give their citizens a decent medical and hospital service why can we not? The reason the public service is so bad is because the middle classes do not have to avail of it. If they did it would have to improve because they would not stand for it.
 
Are you suggesting that if every person who currently occupies a bed in a private hospital was in a bed in a public hospital (as well as those already there) it would not add any cost for the public service?? The state provides everyone with the option of a bed but knows that a large proportion of people will not avail of that option and budgets accordingly.

Rubbish. It’s bad because there is a lack of competence at all levels of management, no accountability for front line staff, strong vested interest groups (unions) who stymie change and reform at every hands turn and pay levels that are far too high across the board.
Add to that a stupid way of funding hospitals which encourages waste and inefficiency and you have our public health service.
 

Any competent manager sits down before the beginning of the year, forecasts the likely income/sales his business is likely to have in the next financial year and budgets accordingly.

Hospitals should be no different, a hospital manager should, be able to forecast the likely patient throughput in a year and then budget accordingly, (with suitable margin for errors). You could build safeguards into the system for epidemics etc but the key is, pay per patient and if you're busy, you get paid more and if things are quieter, management need to take the costs out

At the moment what seems to happen is that a hospital is given a pot of money, if they are busier then planned or the pot won't cover what they need, they struggle and there is no incentive to take on extra patients. If the pot is too much, the challenge is to spend it all because otherwise they won't get it next year.

This isn't rocket science, it's basic good business practises which seem beyond the HSE.
 
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