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Drugs Bill Could Hit €2bn
The State’s prescription bill could reach a massive €2 billion by 2026, a new study has predicted.
Drugs Bill Could Hit €2bn
July 21, 2015
The State’s prescription bill could reach a massive €2 billion by 2026, a new study has predicted.
The population of Ireland is expected to increase to 5.7 million by then and the number of people aged older than 75 years will more than double in that time, so Ireland could be spending more than €2 billion a year to cover the cost of prescription drugs, according to researchers from UCC.
Funded by the HRB, the study bases its projections on existing GMS data, which in 2011 entitled approximately 37 per cent of the Irish population to free prescription drugs and appliances. Using a statistical technique, the researchers then predicted the cost burden of claims as the population ages over the coming years.
According to Dr Noel Woods, lecturer in economics at UCC’s Centre for Policy Studies and lead researcher on the study, overall prescribing costs could rise from €1.29 billion in 2012 to €1.4 billion in 2016, €1.7 billion in 2021 and to more than €2 billion in 2026 if current policies on prescribing prevail.
Some parts of the country have higher average GMS prescription bill claims than others and that is likely to continue, according to the analysis, which is published in the journal BMC Health Services Research.
“Between 2003 and 2009 the Midlands region was the most expensive health board region and the North-West was the least expensive in terms of the average pharmacy cost per eligible GMS person, and our results show that this trend is forecasted to continue to 2026,” said Dr Woods.
The simulations also project that women will be a bigger driver of GMS costs than males, and that people aged 70 and under 11 will be significant drivers of costs in the coming years.