Posted by Michael Wonder on 17 Aug 2016
Proposed new drug guidelines for the PBS put cost-cutting before patients
17 August 2016 - The sustained accessibility of Australians to world-class medicines will be in question if proposed drug review guidelines are implemented.
For decades, Australia led the world in recognising the importance of assessing the value that new medicines provide to its citizens and ensured that the prices Australians paid for these medicines reflected their value. As a result, the health of Australians has been among the best in the world, a feat achieved at levels of healthcare spending that have fallen well below nations such as the United States.
Indeed, within the United States, health policy scholars have frequently viewed Australia’s healthcare system as a model of how care can be delivered efficiently to an entire population. Meanwhile, the notion that drug prices can reflect value has escaped the US health marketplace.
