THE Pharmacy Guild of Australia has called upon the Federal Government to reduce patient co-payments for medicines, to meet its own stated goal of managing the affordability of medicines.
The Guild made the public call releasing its pre-budget submission to the Coalition Government for the 201920 Federal Budget.
"Medicine costs are a highly visible out-of-pocket cost, which become more pronounced as Australians age and are likely to become more reliant on medicines," the Guild says.
"There are 185 million PBS subsidised prescriptions dispensed to concessional patients annually, so the affordability of medicines is of paramount importance to many Australians...the Guild recommends that the 2019-20 Federal Budget improves medicines affordability by removing the optional $1 discount and reducing the PBS and RPBS co-payments by $1 for all patients."
The Guild argues strongly that the $1 discount policy has failed to result in "an aggregate take-up that has meaningfully contributed to lower medicine prices".
In addition, "it has created unfair geographical divergences in the prices that patients with the same health conditions pay for the same subsidised PBS medicines -- undermining the universality of the PBS and arbitrarily creating different classes of patients".
To reinforce the argument, the Guild quotes the Professor Stephen King-led Pharmacy Remuneration and Regulation Review which came to the same conclusion.
Access the submission by visiting the website at guild.org.au.
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