{"id":1863,"date":"2010-05-28T17:59:21","date_gmt":"2010-05-28T17:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.briangreene.com\/bhg\/2010\/socialist-party-condemns-privatisation-of-vhi\/"},"modified":"2010-05-28T17:59:21","modified_gmt":"2010-05-28T17:59:21","slug":"socialist-party-condemns-privatisation-of-vhi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/2010\/socialist-party-condemns-privatisation-of-vhi\/","title":{"rendered":"Socialist Party condemns privatisation of VHI"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='posterous_autopost'>Press Statement from Joe Higgins MEP (Socialist Party) <\/p>\n<p \/> *Proposed Privatisation of VHI: \u00a0Throwing the Old and the Sick to the <br \/>Wolves in the Financial Markets <\/p>\n<p \/> *Will Finish Up as Discredited as Privatisation of Telecom and Team Aer Lingus <\/p>\n<p \/> *Resources should be deployed towards a universal public health care system <\/p>\n<p \/>&#8220;The announcement yesterday by Minister Harney and the Taoiseach that <br \/>VHI will be privatised over the next two years is a further <br \/>installment in this government&#8217;s destruction of the very idea of a <br \/>public Health Service. It is callously throwing hundreds of thousands <br \/>of people, especially the old and the sick, to the mercy of the wolves <br \/>in the insurance and finance markets of the world, for whom private <br \/>corporate profit is the first consideration. <\/p>\n<p \/> &#8220;It does really beggar belief that the government is planning another <br \/>instalment of a neo-liberal agenda which is utterly discredited as the <br \/>economic crisis rages worldwide as a result of these policies. \u00a0It is <br \/>particularly sickening that the proposal is to put Irish patients at <br \/>the mercy of the insurance and financial markets whose reckless <br \/>gambling caused the disaster of toxic debt around the world. <\/p>\n<p \/> &#8220;Minister Harney, by underfunding the public health system has done <br \/>everything she can to force people into taking out private health <br \/>insurance.\u00a0But the recent trend has been of people pulling out of <br \/>private insurance in the context of job losses and other hardships. <\/p>\n<p \/> &#8220;The case for a unified comprehensive public health care system funded <br \/>by progressive taxation and free at the point of use, eliminating <br \/>wasteful competition, advertising and a multiplicity of competing <br \/>administrations has never been stronger. <\/p>\n<p \/> &#8220;I support the defence of the 900 jobs in VHI and would propose that <br \/>workers in the private insurance sector be integrated into the public <br \/>health care system rather than further adding to the swollen dole <br \/>queues.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p \/> END      <\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 10px;\">  <a href=\"http:\/\/posterous.com\">Posted via email<\/a>   from <a href=\"http:\/\/posterous.briangreene.com\/socialist-party-condemns-privatisation-of-vhi\">web lab<\/a>  <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Press Statement from Joe Higgins MEP (Socialist Party) *Proposed Privatisation of VHI: \u00a0Throwing the Old and the Sick to the Wolves in the Financial Markets *Will Finish Up as Discredited as Privatisation of Telecom and Team Aer Lingus *Resources should be deployed towards a universal public health care system &#8220;The announcement yesterday by Minister Harney&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/2010\/socialist-party-condemns-privatisation-of-vhi\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Socialist Party condemns privatisation of VHI<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}