Gov’t Restores Medical Care for Seniors

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Gov’t Restores Medical Care for Seniors

October 22, 2008

By Paddy Clancy

UNDER-siege Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen this week caved into public demand and did a u-turn on a controversial decision to remove free medical services from thousands of elderly folk.

After delaying a trip with a trade delegation to China to deal with the crisis that threatened his government, Cowen announced on Tuesday changes to the budget proposal.

He said there would be a new income threshold of $917 a week for those over 70 — a rise of $262 — under which they would continue to qualify for free medical services before they need to undergo income assessment.

Cowen had been forced to delay his trip to China as his government struggled for a week to recover from a budget gaffe that prompted anger across the community and led to the defection of two TDs (members of Parliament), with others threatening to join them on the opposition benches.

Widespread wrath followed the announcement in last week’s budget that an automatic entitlement to medical cards for the elderly was to be withdrawn as part of the administration’s attempts to deal with the economic crisis.

Cards guaranteeing free medical treatment for all over 70 were introduced by Charlie McCreevy in 2001 when he was finance minister during the height of the Celtic tiger boom.

But Cowen and his ministers argued that the policy of an automatic medical card for all over-70s “would eventually bankrupt the country” because of an aging population, increasing longevity and high medical inflation.

Under the terms of the scheme doctors were compensated from the national exchequer with annual payments of more than $850 for each patient with a card.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said in his budget announcement that over-70s must now undergo a means test to qualify for the card. That would involve scrutinizing the income of 140,000 pensioners to assess their new eligibility for the full medical card in the coming months.

While there was general acceptance that the obviously wealthy should not qualify for the cards, there was also fury that thousands of genuinely deserving cases would be deprived of a vital service.

With plans to reduce the numbers of teachers in the schools in a bid to make savings in education also a feature of the budget, ministers were subjected to widespread taunts that the most vulnerable in society –- children and the old –- were being made to pay for the blunders of the rich.

Ministers were repeatedly asked how they could justify bailing out banks and the construction industry, and then within weeks create more hardship for the young and the old.

By last weekend, following the protest resignation from Fianna Fail of Wicklow TD Joe Behan and a national emergency meeting of party members of county and town councils who feared for their seats in next year’s local government elections, ministers were acknowledging that the medical card issue threatened the future of the government.

The government’s majority in the Dail (Parliament) was cut from 12 to eight when Dublin North Central independent TD Finian McGrath withdrew his support and defected to the opposition benches.

After Tuesday’s announcement Behan said he was still not satisfied and that the government should have scrapped the means assessment scheme altogether.

McGrath described the announcement as “a step in the right direction,” but said the government “should have backed off on the whole thing.”

One cabinet member, Defense Minister Willie O’Dea, openly apologized on RTE’s Questions and Answers show for the angst caused to the elderly.

Cowen also finally admitted, “I regret the fact that this caused the anxiety and the stress that it did.”

He added, “We regret the anxiety that was caused by the failure to properly communicate the fact that over 70% of pensioners over 70 years of age would have been completely unaffected by the original proposal.

“There were people who were convinced they were going to lose their medical card entitlement. Even under the original proposal they were certainly not going to lose it, but the debate became such that people became convinced that that was the case.

“That was never the government’s intention, whatever, so obviously I very much regret that and apologize for it.”

Fine Gael’s Enda Kenny said earlier that Cowen did not appreciate the level of hurt, confusion and anxiety being caused by the decision.

Labor Party leader Eamon Gilmore accused Cowen of attempting to buy time in the face of the unprecedented hostile reaction from the public and the mutiny among his own backbenchers.

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