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Only marginally. The difference is negligible and even if it weren't, there's certainly far more contributing factors than the quality of healthcare provision.
by lucideer 9y ago
Only marginally. The difference is negligible and even if it weren't, there's certainly far more contributing factors than the quality of healthcare provision.
Playing devil's advocate, I guess one could speculatively argue that Ireland's private system* brings up the overall average while the public system only caters to the poor and deprived, but I don't think this would be enough to bring the averages up on its own. I'm sure it's more likely lifestyle factors.
* for those unfamiliar, Ireland has a two-tier health system with extremely poor, underresouced single-payer free healthcare coupled with privately-run hospitals for those with the means to pay.
- Scoundreller 9y agoGranted it's from wiki, but 79% of 2010 Irish health care spending was by government. And part of that 21% will be from public system co-pays and levies that have nothing to do with private-run hospital visits. Sounds like the public system provides the majority of care. Any "public" system still has a private-tier available to anyone that can afford a plane ticket.
- lucideer 9y agoYeah, this is what I would've expected (hence the devil's advocate qualifier), which is why I think our life expectancy has other causal factors. Although, one thing to note is the the government does invest in private hospitals as well, so that 79% figure won't be exclusively public healthcare. This is due to public-private-partnerships whereby a single site will accommodate both a public and private hospital with the entire project being funded by a combination of public and private funds, usually with an extremely favourable arrangement for the private side.