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The Irish health service offers the worst value in the world. (source OECD)
I think the OECD report was ever so slightly more subtle than your summary might suggest. Cormac Lucey is quoted in the OP. I believe he is considered one of the more "fiscally reliable" right of centre economists ? Here is a link to his analysis and musings on some of the data:
https://brianmlucey.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/health-care-spending-ireland-v-oecd/ .
I understand that cross-national health expenditure comparisons are very tricky, as what is included in Health Budgets varies considerably. Care in the community, disability supports and aging supports may or may not be included in health budgets. Here is a link to the Central Statistics Office presentation of an analysis in this area: http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/ne...in_Health_The_Evidence_A_User_Perspective.pdf
I refer especially to the conclusions in the final slide and this one particularly : Deriving lessons (or worse, policy) “at a glance”from international comparisons is potentially misleading. However, I expect it will be fully ignored.
Links to summaries from OECD reports:
https://www.oecd.org/ireland/Health-at-a-Glance-2015-Key-Findings-IRELAND.pdf
http://www.oecd.org/ireland/Health-Policy-in-Ireland-February-2016.pdf
The simple fact is that the public sector is grossly overpaid, over pensioned and over protected.
Another simple fact is that we have a manpower crisis at professional level in the Health Service. I refer to doctors, nurses and mental health professionals. There have been ongoing difficulties in trying to bring mental health community care teams up to strength. I believe some are barely functioning. We are producing graduates. There would seem to be some contradiction, then, between these two "simple facts". Partly this might be because we we may appear well paid relative to other EU countries but our competition for manpower is from other English speaking countries - who offer better terms and conditions (free market forces?).
"The share of generic drugs in the market is low in Ireland in both in volume (29% compared with an OECD average of 48%) and in value (16% compared with an OECD average of 24%)."
Clearly the HSE already has too much budget.
I am not sure how clear this conclusion is. Do you really reckon that the HSE is willingly or negligently paying excessively when they could do otherwise. I think the only thing clear is that there is an issue and it needs to be answered. Could it be in any way related to the fact that we have a high concentration of Pharma companies in Ireland who provide well paid jobs and who might, therefore, have a certain leverage at Government level? I don't know the answer. But in trying to reach one I would refer again to to the underlined quote from the CSO above.
Just to note in general - I do not know the answer to the question about increased health spending (I don't think I would find it so difficult, though, if I was an aging parent with an adult child who was desperately waiting for disability or mental health services). I recognise that we pay a lot for our health services and I do think that they are poorly configured and need drastic (but difficult) reform. I don't think that some of the cheap points about staff being lazy, overpaid, etc provide an insight in what is needed or how reform might take place.
And I think that resistance to reform might come as much from outside the health sector as within. What politician will support reform when it comes to some perceived loss in their own constituency? - Because we the voters will reward him/her accordingly at the next election. Notice who is involved with some of the "save our services" type groups - members of the local business community, primarily concerned with loss of "well-paid" jobs located locally and, thus, "spending power".
Or perhaps the nub of the problem is lazy nurses.