Health and Education

Health and Education
The Health and Education systems are two of the most important sectors in any society, and Ireland is no different.

A successful Health and Education policy must focus on the long term well being of the people of Ireland, first and foremost. The health budget has quadrupled since 1997, with insufficient return in terms of improved services to justify this. There are many issues surrounding both health and education in Ireland which this policy document will deal with.

Health
The most important and central policy in Health is the transfer of the current public health system to a part privatised system, modelled on the Dutch healthcare system, which was rated number one in the world for quality of service and number two for value for money. The Dutch have spent some twenty years refining their system, which makes the task of transition by observing their results much simpler.

The main features of the Dutch healthcare system are:

All individuals must be insured
All individuals purchase health insurance on the private market
Individuals can choose to get their health insurance through their employer–if the option is available–but the employer does not have to offer health insurance. If the employer does not offer health insurance or if an individual is unemployed, then they must purchase health insurance on the private market.
Health insurers are free to charge each individual any price they please for health insurance. Of course, market forces limit the price that the insurers can charge the consumers before they switch to another plan.
The cost of health care is more transparent to consumers since they see the price they are charged for health care. In most national social health insurance programs, individuals do not know the value of health care they receive since the amount of money they pay into the system is proportional to their income and thus unrelated to actuarially fair value of health insurance.
Health insurance is subsidized by the state. “Insurers get risk-equalization payments for patients with about 30 major diseases.” Thus, people who are sicker receive a larger state subsidy than healthy individuals.
Lower income families are subsidised in their insurance payments by the state.
Hospitals compete with one another in public leaderboards.
The role of the state then becomes one of regulation rather than support, allowing one of the major costs to the state to be removed.
Long-term treatments, especially those which involve (semi-)permanent hospitalization, and also disability costs such as wheelchairs, are covered by a a state-run mandatory insurance.
A key feature of the Dutch system is that premiums are set at a flat rate for all purchasers regardless of health status or age. Risk variances between funds due to the different risks presented by individual policy holders are compensated through risk equalization and a common risk pool which makes it more attractive for insurers to attract risky clients.

It is estimated that a full transition to a similar system would take seven years, and will be done in cooperation with Dutch experts. The transition process will be complex, as the Dutch demographic and geographic situation is very different to our own. One example might be mandating that insurance companies support a minimum service for small regional clinics. Needless to say regulatory capture will be protected against at every level.

Further health policies

Adoption: The adoption process must be streamlined without putting vulnerable individuals at risk, in particular the foreign adoption process, which can take up to five years, leading to undue stress for both the child and their adoptive family.
Mental Health: This key area includes much improved facilities and modern techniques for dealing with mental health issues, especially in the criminal justice system.
A much greater focus will be placed on preventative healthcare, ensuring that a healthy lifestyle is pursued and diagnosis and treatments are made available much earlier.
In an effort to move away from the "pub culture", a lifelong entertainment, pastime and and social club system will be set up, with support for hobbyists and those with common social interests.
Obesity is a major issue in modern healthcare, and requires several steps to be taken in order to deal with it. Industry, including the electronic games industry, sponsorship of school and community sports will be encouraged. Controls will be issued on the weight-loss industry to ensure it is properly regulated, as well as ensuring food is accurately labelled with regard to nutrition. Food industry grants will be in favour of healthy food projects, in conjunction with local authorities. Schools will have a mandated minimum physical education per week, combined with training programmes for health professionals. Restrictions will be placed on junk food advertising.
Hospices will receive further funding to reduce waiting lists.
A support system for Accident & Emergency will be put in place to reduce the load on these essential services.
Setting up a national drug purchase agency to purchase wholesale all drugs issued on state funded prescriptions and in hospitals, ensuring that wherever possible generics are to be used.
The transition to a centralised electronic patient record system. This has been successfully implemented in Singapore, reducing administration overheads by an enormous amount, and the associated costs.
The reliance on consultants which exists in the Irish healthcare system at the moment will be reduced and eventually removed.
A free medical checkup annually will help with preventative healthcare and reduce insurance premiums for those who partake in it.
Alcoholism treatment and research centres will be set up based around naltrexone therapy combined with endorhpin inihibitors.

Education
The central education policy is to renovate and improve the educational infrastructure in this country. We will remove all portacabins currently used for educational purposes and replace them with world class, permanent facilites. In cases where there are several small schools in close proximity in a region, these can be amalgamated into one single large school, with due regard to the impact such amalgamation might have on the community. All existing school facilities will be upgraded in a similar fashion to ensure they are conducive to learning and a supportive environment for students. This will include more ergonomic school furniture.

The setting up of ten key third level educational institutions is outlined in the growth section of the policy documents.

The main policy however is a commitment to combining all Irish educational works, books, and curriculums onto a single centralised information centre. This project will be undertaken in association with recognised world leaders in the market, such as Google. Access to this database will be provided by induction powered (no cables) ruggedised electronic tablets, connected via wi-fi to central school repositories of the information covered. These tablets will be engineered to be long lasting and responsive, with e-ink screens (non luminous, like a sheet of paper behind an unreflective plastic screen), which has the added advantage of a much longer battery life.

This intiative will not only provide a boost to domestic Irish industry in creating and maintaining these resources, as well as giving us a system to potentially export to other countries, but will greatly expand and consolidate the material available to students, allowing them to study at their own pace. This also allows the "waterfall effect", which means students who don't understand a concept or term can select that term for a greater explanation, and so work back until they can reach a level they do understand, before building from there. An emphasis will be placed on the idea that "Education is your own responsibility", without reducing the role of the teacher. Another advantage is that the system isn't just limited to text, it can be used to transfer sounds to students, making language education, a key factor in future growth, much simpler.

Students will also be able to interact with one another and with qualified tutors on a national level (this system disconnected from the main internet), and hold discussions in forums, as well as building their own knowledgebase of ideas and solutions which will accumulate over time into an enormous volume of knowledge to help students at every level, all the way to postgraduate. It can also be used by for example businesses to interact with students to give them real life knowledge and understanding of the actual challenges they will face in the world, providing reference material and assisting with research on a one to one basis, which will persist for future students to read and understand.

Further Educational Policies

A pre school scheme to effectively deal with the pressures of the modern workplace on family life, as well as prepare children for further education.
One of the most important policies is that of ongoing adult learning, making training and education an easy and clear option for adults of all ages. This will be free, and focused on a broad range of educational requirements.
Education is one of the best investments any country can make in its own future, economically and socially, so to that end Amhrán Nua guarantee the continued high quality free education being received in Ireland, and the reduction and eventual removal of all direct costs associated with education.
Improved school bus support will be included in the infrastructure upgrade.
Large urban and suburban developments will mandate an integrated development plan, to include new schools and community services in each area.
The transition year can be used to pair up businesspeople with students, to give them a better idea of what direction they want to go.
Universities will be given endowments and investment portfolios, similar to educational facilites in the US, to help funding by long term investment.
Over a number of years cut the pupil to teacher ratio in half.
The influence of secular authorities in the educational system will be emphasised.
Inspect schools on a more regular basis.
Give more support to those doing post grads part time.
Make diagnostic testing for learning disabilities free for all schools and ensure a situation where children can be tested psychologically or otherwise if a teacher feels there is a need for it.
Ensure that principals are highly qualified and have at least one post graduate degree under their belt. Principal's contracts will be for five years after which post should be advertised. The preceding principal will be allowed to re-apply but no principal should serve for more than ten years.
Reverse the increasing reduction in second level educational standards which has caused recent university entrant dropout levels to increase.
There will be an increased emphasis on the involvement of parents in the role of education.
Review research, momographs and so on by professors and lecturers.
A dedicated truancy unit will be put in place.
A streamlining of educational support staff, including inservice providers, teachers registration councils, various exams commissions, rights officers, committees, councils, and so on, after reviews of their position and productivity.
The Inspectorate of the Department of Education and Science will be reformed and given more powers to investigate allegations of irregularities among educators.
Require trained teachers to work in the private sector before starting teaching, to ensure a broad base of experience.
Ensure every child can get three nutritious meals a day while in school, supported by the removal of all junk foods from the school.
Streamline the entry of new teachers into teaching positions, including the removal of options to hold permanent jobs open while the teacher pursues a career elsewhere.
More effective measures will be put in place to keep teachers up to date on the latest developments in their areas, such as attending certified courses over the summer break. Basic teaching skills must also be refreshed, including content development, promoting engagement, and classroom management. The teacher has to be able to develop a lesson that is appropriate for the grade level, cognitive ability for the students in that classroom, and that covers the standards being taught.
An increased emphasis on teaching the Irish language. Many international universities also offer Irish language, culture and history courses, so there is an opportunity to create a market for the Irish language. The intention would also be to increase the number of Gaelscoils in order to reduce the waiting lists for these.