Government Must Tackle The Monopoly Drugs Rip Off – Crowe<\/p>\n
Dublin South West representative and Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the government to do more to tackle the high cost of prescription drugs in the State.<\/p>\n
Crowe said that despite the fact many of the drugs were manufactured by companies based in the State, Irish Citizens were having to pay some of the highest costs for generic and patent drugs in Europe.<\/p>\n
Deputy Crowe said: \u201cThe health provisions in this government\u2019s Budget was a shambles from start to finish. Their idea of universal healthcare is to give out GP-only cards with one hand and take back full medical cards with the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are also proposing to raise prescription charges to \u20ac2.50 per item, subject to a ceiling of \u20ac25 a month for the holders of medical cards.<\/p>\n
\u201cMinisters James Reilly and Jan O\u2019Sullivan, when in opposition as Fine Gael and Labour\u2019s Health spokespeople, denounced the imposition by Mary Harney and Fianna F\u00e1il of 50 cents per item prescription charges for medical card holders. This is a bit rich considering their Government have now increased those charges five-fold.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe price of prescription drugs also differs hugely on this island. Recent surveys have shown that citizens in the North can pay as much as \u20ac400 less than citizens in the south for a year\u2019s worth of popular prescription drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time when working people are struggling to afford basic households bills, it is\u00a0 scandal\u00a0 that this government has not actively or robustly tackled the price monopoly of prescription drugs<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to a 2012 OECD Health Report, the amount, per person, that Irish citizens spend on pharmaceuticals is the highest of all EU countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients and taxpayers are quite simply being ripped off by the pharmaceutical industry and this is facilitated by the government\u2019s sweetheart deal agreement with these companies.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinn F\u00e9in, in our fully costed pre-Budget submission, showed how the government could save \u20ac318 million by delivering further savings on branded medicines, altering prescribing practices, and introducing generic substitutions and reference pricing for the 20 most commonly used off-patent medications.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe millions being wasted on grossly over-priced medicine could be providing more medical cards and better front-line health services.<\/p>\n
“It is a\u00a0 damning indictment and totally unacceptable, the\u00a0 fact that many of the drugs are manufactured by companies based in this State and yet Irish Citizens are having to pay some of the highest costs for generic and patent drugs in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s time this government ended the rip-off for consumers and tackled the monopoly cost of prescription drugs in this State.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Government Must Tackle The Monopoly Drugs Rip Off – Crowe Dublin South West representative and Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the government to do more to tackle the high cost of prescription drugs in the State. Crowe said that despite the fact many of the drugs were manufactured by companies based in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1256,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions\/1256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}