COST containment is an emotive issue in any area, but in health care it has the potential to be explosive, the Minister for Health told the Association Internationale de la Mutualite (AIM) yesterday.
Mr Noonan was opening the international conference of health insurance organisations in Dublin, hosted by the VHI.
"The principles of equity and accountability, which, together with quality, underpin this country's health strategy, must be constant reference points in a solution to the shared difficulties presented by the accelerating cost of, and public appetite for, health care," he said.
Ireland faced much the same challenges and dilemmas as the countries from which the delegates came, he added.
Some 350 delegates from 122 organisations in 31 countries are attending the conference, which continues today. Its theme is "Paying for Health: the New Partnership".
AIM brings together executives and technical experts from independent non-profit-making health insurance organisations in more than 20 countries, mainly in western Europe, but increasingly also in developing and former communist countries.
In some European countries, such as France and the Netherlands, for example, AIM members administer the state's basic health insurance scheme.
According to its statement of principles, AIM members "believe that the insurance of the human person, as opposed to the insurance of cars, property or other non-life risks, is governed by a unique set of ethics and should be supported by the necessary legislative framework".
Such a framework should include the principles that each individual shares in the cost of preventing and treating illness in society as a whole, irrespective of their personal risk, and that good medical care should be accessible to all, regardless of age, social status, profession or income.
As well as analysing developments in health care, AIM lobbies governments and the EU in pursuit of these principles.