We've succeeded in reducing the proportion of people who smoke in Ireland. The money spent in this area has been shown to be a good investment both societally and economically. Why would we stop doing something that's working?
20 cigarettes up 50cent.
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Paul O Mahoney
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When I was sick our daughter who was 8 at the time fainted when she came in to see me, on the way down she bumped her head and my wife brought her to the A&E on site. About a year later we get a bill for €120 and was told that if we didn't pay it immediately we would be perused via the courts, I happened to be in the hospital the following week for a CT scan and brought the threat/bill with me, after the CT scan I found the accounts department and asked why I was only aware of this now and why the legal threats.
She explained that they were late getting the bills out and after 90 days the policy was to issue bills with that text. She asked then was I going to pay , and I asked her to put my hospital number in her system and pull up my details, she did that and the blood physical left her face.
Then I asked her to see the notes on the day of my daughter needing to see a doctor in A&E and there is was she didn't present to A&E a registar had referred her to A&E therefore no charge was due. She became flustered and said that she'd look into it. She asked for the invoice back but I said "I keep it for my memoir" .
They try and extract as much money as they can and no matter what from people with health insurance and if they get it wrong its your problem.
Paul O Mahoney
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No/less revenue. People's health has always been second to money in this country and I fear always will.
I think the people involved all mean well but they just aren't capable of doing the job properly.
Sophrosyne
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I’m not suggesting you are wrong; you could very well be totally correct on this.
I’m not a smoker & I am not in any way advocating smoking.
We are told of the harmful effect of smoking such as heart attack, coronary heart disease, COPD and other respiratory disease, various cancers, etc.
But, are they caused solely by smoking?
The reason I am suspicious is because of conversations I had over the years with various consultants attending my father.
They said that smoking often masks other irritants and conditions that lead to the above diseases and often clinicians don’t look beyond smoking.
The smoking ban, which at the time was a huge measure and a world first, together with increased excise duty should certainly have had some measurable effect on the number of people presenting with these diseases due to smoking.
I have seen studies of smoking habits which only tell us so much, but not how that, of itself, has reduced incidents of coronary and respiratory diseases and cancers.
Were it successful, surely we would be bombarded with pre- and post-smoking ban comparative statistics?
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Excellent point.
Make you wonder alright.
After 17+years you would think so.........hmm.
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There's some analysis out there.
I don't understand why people believe it either as it's a complete myth. Lidl, Aldi and Tesco are giving away fruit and vegetables for next to nothing (e.g. large bags of apples, carrots and potatoes for 49 cents). Healthy staples such as beans, wholegrain rice and tinned tomatoes are also very cheap. Obese citizens gorging on frozen fish fingers is a social and cultural problem, not the result of economic circumstances.
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I can easily feed a family two teenagers, a 12 year old and myself for €60 a week. At a stretch I could do it for €50 or a little less.
Chicken thighs in a slow cooked curry (take the skin off and bones out before serving), Bean Chilli, Dahl, slow cooked pasta sauces, all dirt cheap and tasty. Pizza made from scratch is also really cheap and nicer and great fun to do with the kids. You can get a pizza stone on Amazon for €15. If you can read and tell the time you can cook. If you say you can't but want to and feed your kids processes rubbish you're just lazy and don't care enough about them to bother.
Both myself and my wife can easily live well on less than €30 per week for food. In fact we had to stop using the €10 off a €50 spend in Dunnes Stores voucher because we couldn't spend enough. After a while you can have so many bottles of bleach, dishwasher tabs etc.
We now get a €5 off a €25 spend and that is working well.
To think that people are spending that amount of money in a day on cigarettes and more. What fools.
We are having a birthday get together for our 18 year old grand daughter shortly. We visited all of the supermarkets over this week including M & S. to have a look at their party offering stuff. We topped up on the "special offers" in each store when we saw them and as a result have a well stocked fridge and freezer that will more than keep us going.
I will have difficulty spending my current €5 off a €25 spend from Dunnes Stores this week as a result.
We now get a €5 off a €25 spend and that is working well.
To think that people are spending that amount of money in a day on cigarettes and more. What fools.
We are having a birthday get together for our 18 year old grand daughter shortly. We visited all of the supermarkets over this week including M & S. to have a look at their party offering stuff. We topped up on the "special offers" in each store when we saw them and as a result have a well stocked fridge and freezer that will more than keep us going.
I will have difficulty spending my current €5 off a €25 spend from Dunnes Stores this week as a result.
I usually spend far more because I can afford to and I like cooking but when things were tighter I adjusted my spending accordingly. Nobody was hungry.
We love cooking from scratch. No problem with buying fillet steaks on a regular basis. We trim a bit of meat off the edges and add to a stir fry. Huge bag of already mixed stir fry veg in SuperValu or Aldi, less than €2. Add in a Chinese sauce. Beautiful meal for very little outlay.
I also love mince meat. Mince stew, spagetti bolognese, burger, chilli con carne, lasagna. You can get several days out of €6 worth of mince.
Same with a roast chicken.
All for about €30 per week for two people.
Dunnes Stores have their 20% off wine sale at the moment. Our usual bottle of preferred red reduced down to €6.80. Stocked up now until next Easter.
Such a pity we can no longer use our €10 off voucher against the wine though.
......and not a cigarette in sight.
I also love mince meat. Mince stew, spagetti bolognese, burger, chilli con carne, lasagna. You can get several days out of €6 worth of mince.
Same with a roast chicken.
All for about €30 per week for two people.
Dunnes Stores have their 20% off wine sale at the moment. Our usual bottle of preferred red reduced down to €6.80. Stocked up now until next Easter.
Such a pity we can no longer use our €10 off voucher against the wine though.
......and not a cigarette in sight.
Adults are entitled to stuff themselves with rubbish food but not their children. Bad nutrition fuels poor educational attainment, the reproduction of social disadvantage and by extension of crime, poverty and anti-social behaviour. There is a strange tolerance here of irresponsible parenting and an unwillingness to hold parents to account who in effect are abusing their children.
Sophrosyne
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Increased Carbon Tax means increased fuel costs, which in turn means the cost of everything else is increased.
Even those who live very frugally will find the cost of food, cleaning, grooming, clothing, household goods, domestic fuel and petrol & diesel have increased.
This is on top of already rising fuel costs.
The last thing the economy needs right now is higher prices.
Ireland’s price index for household consumption expenditure, at 136.1, is the second highest in the EU after Denmark.
The price indices for Germany, France, Italy & Spain, for instance, are 108.2, 114.01, 101.2, & 95.5 respectively. The UK is 119.1.
Even those who live very frugally will find the cost of food, cleaning, grooming, clothing, household goods, domestic fuel and petrol & diesel have increased.
This is on top of already rising fuel costs.
The last thing the economy needs right now is higher prices.
Ireland’s price index for household consumption expenditure, at 136.1, is the second highest in the EU after Denmark.
The price indices for Germany, France, Italy & Spain, for instance, are 108.2, 114.01, 101.2, & 95.5 respectively. The UK is 119.1.
Increased Carbon Tax only means higher prices if we keep using hydrocarbons to generate out power. Thankfully it's looking like the EU will designate Nuclear as a Green Power source. We may finally embrace the only dependable and sustainable green energy.
Sophrosyne
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But when will that happen?
God only knows.
I think there are factors outside the HSE why these highly paid professionals choose not to work in Ireland but in London, Australia or Canada. There is a lack of the cosmopolitan nightlife and leisure activities that they find outside Ireland. They pay higher tax in Ireland than elsewhere due to our "progressive" taxation system where high earners pay the bulk of the tax. There is a lack of investment opportunities compared to the UK or Canada where high earners can invest money tax free like the personal savings accounts that the UK has.
Yep, our very high marginal tax rates on moderate incomes are a major disincentive to work and work is what creates wealth. It also seems that doctors like money just as much as the rest of us.
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