Local Independent Republican TD Brian Stanley has taken to the Dáil to question the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill over issues regarding Medical card blockages.
Stanley has been outspoken about how the income threshold for those before retirement, has not been changed in two decades.
With the presence of the cost of living crisis he expressed concerns over ‘many people, who are in desperate need of it’.
MacNeill upon being posed the question from Deputy Stanley replied “I assure the Deputy that my department keeps medical card issues under review in order to ensure the medical card system is responsive”
On top of this statement when discussing the reviews, she calls this an “important step to delivering universal healthcare”
Stanley responded by using a scenario of a couple with two children needing a medical card, the limit of which would be €298 plus a €50 from the social welfare
Stanley describes this as a real problem for workers and families and encouraged the Minister of Health to do her aforementioned review in the next budget.
Other than the Medical card eligibility, the minister of Health discussed the eligibility of the free GP visit card being extended “enormously”.
MacNeill candidly expressed worry over the 430,000 people who are eligible and have not been awarded them.
Under the expansion, only 38,517 GP Visit cards have been awarded as of January of this year.
To combat this, a media campaign was rolled to out to tell people about the new threshold and encouraged people to take them up.
Stanley was pleased with the GP visit card eligibility change, describing it as being ‘welcome’. He too, was concerned that only one in twelve entitled to it have applied to it.
He conveyed that work the “Government and all of us to try get the word out there on that”.
Stanley finished with the importance of getting ‘people into primary care’ and how it was due to the “neglect people have for their own health due to costs and they finished up with a more chronic condition”
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