site.btaGERB to Move for Scrapping Moratorium on Reimbursement of New Therapies by National Health Insurance Fund

Sofia, December 19 (BTA) - The parliamentary group of the ruling GERB party will propose scrapping a moratorium on reimbursement of new therapies by the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF). The proposal will be made Wednesday at a meeting of the leaders of the political groups in Parliament, said GERB floor leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov in a statement circulated by the party press office.

GERB will insist that the decision be made solely if it is backed by all groups in Parliament.

The moratorium was set in place through the NHIF budget for 2018. It was slammed by patient organizations and the medical community, and was vetoed by the President but Parliament overrode the veto. The Prime Minister, however, indicated last week that he was willing to reconsider the moratorium. On December 18, the Health Minister said that a special commission would be set up to consider and allow the use of new medicines affected by the moratorium in cases where the available therapy has not worked or where no alternatives are available.

The statement by Tsvetanov makes it clear that he had a number of meetings on the matter Tuesday: with the floor leaders in Parliament, with the Prime Minister and the Ministers of Health and of Finance. "The aim was to neutralize allegations that Bulgarian patients will be left without treatment and medicines," he said.

Tsvetanov says that "the GERB proposal for scrapping the memorandum had the support of the representatives of all institutions he spoke to, as well as the chairpersons of the competent parliamentary committees".

The announcement of GERB's decision comes shortly after the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) said it leader Kornelia Ninova had called GERB leader and Prime Minister Boyko Borissov asking him to revise the newly adopted 2018 NHIF Budget Act in order to scrap the moratorium on the reimbursement of new therapies.

The Socialists want the revisions adopted by the year's end.

Ninova said that she has been authorized by cancer and other patients to talk to the Prime Minister about the issue.

Kornelia Ninova said patient organizations believe it is inadequate to try to bypass the restrictions through commissions and that amending the NHIF budget act is the only legitimate way to deal with the situation.

Patient organizations have figured out that if the special commissions meets once a week, it will have 170 cases to consider at each meeting. "This will not solve the problem: it will deepen it," Ninova said.

She said that if their proposal is rejected, her party would take the matter to the Constitutional Court but this is a slow process and the new rules take effect from January 1 and "patients will be left without medicines", to use her words.