Its proposals for reform of the health service, published last April, were a variant of continental-style universal health insurance. It does create a different relationship between the patient and the health services. So Labour has proposed extending insurance to cover everyone, with the State paying premiums for those who cannot afford them. In effect, private practice would be removed from public hospitals. Current VHI subscribers might question what they would get for their money if they could no longer jump queues.
Labour proposes investment and reform to ensure that waiting lists cease to be a problem.
Labour also proposes a free GP service. The Commission on Health Funding in 1989 proposed another route to equitable access, the introduction of common waiting lists for public and private patients in public hospitals. This would remove the chief incentive to take out private insurance, which would also cost more because of abolition of tax relief for VHI premiums and the proposal to charge insurance companies the full cost of private beds in public hospitals. Prof Brian Nolan of the ESRI forecasts that implementing these proposals would bring about a situation similar to the UK, where 12 per cent of the population now have private health insurance and its main attraction is access to private hospitals. If a government was elected here with a mandate to bring equitable healthcare to Ireland, it would therefore have two local models to consider - the Labour Party's, or the one advanced by the Commission on Health Funding.