John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I disagree with the Minister because there are situations where there is no other competing treatment. They make an arbitrary decision “we ain’t paying for this one” because they know that people will fall back into the arms of the State. In taking a global systematic view of health expenditure in the country, I understand this would tend to increase premia but not increasing the premia, if the drug is rejected by the company and is instead provided by the State, increases our tax. There is a very good argument to be made for enforcing a degree of compliance with the mandate. I can give the Minister specific examples - and I have been somewhat critical of the methodologies used by the NCPE – of drugs that the NCPE has approved as being sufficiently cost-effective but that insurance companies have rejected. At the same time some of these insurance companies are paying for things like homeopathy.