Our View: Everyone earning above a certain income should pay for healthcare

MANY people remarked about the negligible opposition to the raft of austerity measures that were approved last month after marathon sessions of the legislature. There was a one-hour work stoppage at state schools and a peaceful demonstration by teachers and some protests outside the legislature by disabled people and members of big families who had their benefits cut. The rest of the public sector workers, despite some verbal threats, accepted cuts to pay, pensions and benefits without a protest, showing a remarkable sense of responsibility.
This did not last. On Tuesday, the leadership of the public employees union, PASYDY, which represents civil servants, police and nursing staff met the ministers of health and finance and informed them that the abolition of free healthcare for all its members would be a casus belli. According to press reports, PASYDY was not even willing to negotiate, simply threatening that if the health bill, which would introduce income criteria for everyone, was submitted to the legislature, the public service would come to a standstill. It was blackmail, which the ministers obviously took seriously, as they told PASYDY they would look into the matter.
The health bill is part of the memorandum of understanding and if approved would end the privilege of free healthcare for all public servants. It envisages an increase in hospital charges and the introduction of fees for drugs and use of the casualty wards; only people earning less than a specific income would be entitled to free healthcare. This means that the overwhelming majority of well-paid public employees would be ineligible. PASYDY claims that free healthcare was part of the terms of employment of public employees who had already seen their incomes shrink as a result of the austerity measures.
In short, PASYDY wants the continuation of the social injustice – which it describes as a worker’s conquest – by which a family on an annual income €30,000 would pay for healthcare, while that of a public employee on €100,000 would not. The union also expressed concern for pensioner public employees, which was laughable – they would and should pay because their pension income is higher than the income of many people who were in work. Elderly people, who live on the paltry state pension, would be eligible, quite rightly, to free healthcare and this is how it should be.
The troika’s proposal that everyone earning above a certain income should pay for healthcare is both rational and socially just. It was high time the provocative privileges enjoyed by the public employees were abolished. And the new criteria should also apply to Turkish Cypriots, who cannot carry on enjoying free care, on the strength of their ethnic origin.

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