A variety of recent reports and strategy documents have highlighted the intimidating range of challenges facing Ireland-s health system as it seeks to improve its performance. In this short paper we cannot deal with these in any comprehensive fashion, but instead focus on three specific issues. First, we illustrate the value of trying to benchmark performance against other countries, as well as some of the difficulties that arise in such an exercise. Secondly, with primary care a central focus of official strategies we look at the use of general practitioner services by people at different income levels and in particular by those with and without entitlement to free GP care. Finally, we discuss the complex web of issues in relation to both equity and efficiency that arise from the unique role which private health insurance plays in the Irish healthcare system.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in its series Papers with number
HRBWP14.
Length: 26 pages Date of creation: Nov 2004 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:hrb14
Note: Published by ESRI, ISSC & University of Ulster Contact details of provider: Postal: Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2 Phone: (353-1) 863 2000 Fax: (353-1) 863 2100 Email: Web page: http://www.esri.ie More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Sarah Burns).
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)