Rates of smoking have decreased dramatically in most Northern European countries over the last fifty years or so, but this decline has not been uniform across the population and there have actually been increases in smoking among lower income and social class groups. Although smoking...

In Ireland, approximately 30 per cent of the population (medical cardholders) receive free GP services while the remainder (non-medical cardholders) must pay for each visit. In 1989, the manner in which GPs were reimbursed by the State for their medical cardholder patients was changed from...

A variety of recent reports and strategy documents have highlighted the intimidating range of challenges facing Ireland-s health system as it seeks to improve its performance. In this short paper we cannot deal with these in any comprehensive fashion, but instead focus on three specific issues....

Over the past decade or so the context in which Irelands complex mix of public and private health care operates has changed radically, as the numbers purchasing health insurance have soared and the nature of the insurance market has changed in response to EU regulations. This has widened the...

This paper examines the determinants of general practitioner (GP) utilisation patterns in Ireland over the period 1987-2001. Using three different micro-data sets, the influence of socio-economic factors as well as health status variables on the demand for GP visits is analysed. A particular...

The extent to which the cost of obtaining health care influences the utilisation of GP and other health services is a frequently analysed topic. A key issue concerns the extent to which access to private health insurance and/or eligibility for free public health services results in differences...

There is a temptation for the debate on reducing GP utilization to employ terms such as ‘appropriate’ or ‘unnecessary’, terms that are in fact value-laden. The meaning of such terms is rarely defined explicitly, perhaps reflecting the lack of consensus on the nature of services that...

In Ireland, approximately 30 per cent of the population (“medical card patients”) are entitled to free GP care while the remaining 70 per cent (“private patients”) must pay the full cost of each visit. While previous research has analysed the effect of this system on GP visiting patterns...