POLITICAL REACTION:THE GOVERNMENT was seeking a "blank cheque" from the public to fund the planned cash injection for the VHI, Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly has said.
Dr Reilly claimed the Government’s plan would further enshrine the “two-tier” health system which discriminated against those without health insurance. “It is disturbing to say the least that the Government cannot even quantify the cost of the cash injection the VHI will require so that it can be authorised by the Financial Regulator,” he said.
“If the banking fiasco has taught us anything, it is that the taxpayer should not be expected to sign a blank cheque . . . Where is the solidarity in further enshrining the two-tier system which discriminates against those without health insurance?”
Labour health spokeswoman Jan O’Sullivan said the Government had no mandate for the plan.
“The Government is now in the situation where it is seeking a buyer for Quinn Health Insurance and will shortly be seeking a buyer for VHI.
“The two biggest private health insurers are on the market, with no certainty about the outcome,” she said.
“We believe that the interests of VHI members . . . would better be served by turning VHI into a not-for-profit mutual (ie owned by the members) and developed as part of a universal health insurance system as proposed by the Labour Party.”
Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said the privatisation of VHI was flawed. “The announcement that the VHI is to be privatised . . . is another step in the wrong direction,” he said.
“It fits in with the agenda of privatisation that dominates the fundamentally-flawed health policy of the Fianna Fáil/Green Government and all of its predecessors, who have maintained the grossly-inequitable two-tier healthcare system in this State.
“The Government says that this announcement is based on the principle of solidarity in private health insurance as well as in public health services. What about solidarity across our society in the provision of equitable healthcare for all who need it?”
