The new pharmacy agreement means consumers overall will pay billions of dollars more for prescribed medicines over the next five years, the Consumers Health Forum said today.

“Of concern to CHF which has sought to counter rising health co-payments is that consumers will be contributing significantly more in increased medicines costs,” the Chief Executive Officer of CHF, Leanne Wells, said.

“Figures in the new agreement show that consumers will directly contribute an estimated $8.2 billion to pharmacy owners’ remuneration over five years and that amounts to 34 per cent of the estimated $23.6 billion in total payments for PBS medicines to pharmacies. That’s up from the $4.8 billion or 29 per cent of payments under the current agreement.

“We welcome the Government’s measures to bring down the prices of some drugs in line with the international market, to announce the listing of new drugs and the introduction of an optional $1 discount on prescription medicines.

For more details, go to: https://www.chf.org.au/pdfs/chf/Media-Release---Pharmacy-agreement-offers-pills-with-a-sugar-coating.pdf