Leo Varadkar suggests dental and GP costs could be re-couped under PRSI scheme

The Minister for Health says he favours the return of a former scheme whereby people paying PRSI could recoup some of the costs of their dental care.

Leo Varadkar also said he would like to possibly see a similar scheme covering GP care. However, he would not like to see general practice becoming "entirely socialised" with doctors as public servants.

The Minister was commenting on reports in The Irish Times yesterday that he was looking at alternatives to the plans for universal health insurance (UHI) put forward last year by his predecessor James Reilly. Mr Varadkar has sought new research looking, for example, at confining UHI to hospitals only and excluding drugs or primary care services.

Social insurance

He has also asked researchers to examine other models such as single-payer insurance, as well as a model funded fully through taxation using social insurance. The Minister insisted yesterday he was not trying to scale back UHI. Rather, he said, he was trying to make sure it went ahead.

He said the Government had made a start with the extension of free GP care to children under six. He said if the Government was re-elected, this scheme would be rolled out further to other groups.

He acknowledged the Government was behind schedule with its healthcare reform programme. Mr Varadkar also acknowledged that healthcare reform had proved to be “ a bigger job” than the Government had originally appreciated.

He suggested a second term for the Government could see either free or subsidised primary care for everyone, as well as a much better drug subsidy scheme, as the current €144 minimum per household per month was far too high.

Mr Varadkar said that while he wanted free GP care extended to all children on a tax-funded basis, he would not be in favour of family doctors becoming public servants or primary care being “entirely socialised”.

Autonomous practitioners

“One of best things about general practice in

Ireland

is that they are independent, autonomous practitioners with different sources of funding. That is why in many ways the quality of general practice is so high.”

Asked whether adults would always have to make a contribution to GP care, Mr Varadkar said it had been envisaged in Fine Gael policy that either insurers would pay GPs directly or people could reclaim some of the cost of seeing their GP.

“A similar model existed in the past in dental treatment, for example, where people got some of their dental bills back on their PRSI. That worked very well and I’d like to see that restored . . . and may be used in primary care as well.”

Fianna Fáil's Billy Kelleher said Mr Varadkar should confirm he had formally abandoned UHI, which he described as "the central health policy commitment on which his party fought the last election".