Abstract
This chapter examines the Irish health care system, its recent proposed reform, and the influence that austerity has had on it. As will be seen, the neoliberal response to the crisis has had particularly negative effects on the quality of health care and its accessibility. The chapter also makes the more fundamental point that the system has always been organised in a way that has favoured elites to the detriment of ordinary people, which means that, in a way, austerity has always prevailed — the recent round of cutbacks constitutes the latest chapter in this unfortunate history.
People will die because of the Government’s decision to focus on competition rather than quality in health care.
Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet (quoted in Pollock and Price, 2013: 174)
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© 2015 Julien Mercille and Enda Murphy
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Mercille, J., Murphy, E. (2015). Health and Health Care. In: Deepening Neoliberalism, Austerity, and Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137468765_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137468765_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-55805-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-46876-5
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