National was promising yesterday to pay for 13 cancer treatments not currently available to patients in New Zealand. They're available in Australia, not in New Zealand.
The New Zealand Cancer Control Agency recently identified 13 treatments for lung, bowel, kidney and head and neck cancers that provide significant clinical benefits - and they are funded in Australia, not in New Zealand.
National says it will allocate $280 million in ring-fenced funding to Pharmac over four years to pay for these therapies.
They say it's a better use of taxpayers’ money than paying the $5 prescription fees for everyone, including those who can afford to pay for it themselves.
National’s not throwing everybody under the bus re prescriptions though - they say superannuitants and those on low incomes will receive free prescriptions, as I understand it, a lot of people receive them free anyway if they fall into certain categories.
The total amount any family will pay for prescriptions in a year will be capped at $100, and that's how they're going to fund cancer treatments. People who can afford prescriptions will pay for them. Those who can’t - won't.
On the Mike Hosking Breakfast, Medical oncologist Dr Chris Jackson wasn't entirely enthusiastic, I think it's fair to say.
He believes there are a number of fishhooks in the policy of telling Pharmac what it should be funding. Dr Jackson also said they'd rather see the funding go towards the nurses, the doctors, the personnel who need to see these patients before you start talking about drug funding.
And probably worth noting, he is married to a Labour minister, Rachel Brooking. In this case, he was like, I don't think it's a good idea to politicise it. The money should have gone to more doctors, more nurses and more radiologists.
Except, Pharmac has been politicised before - remember Herceptin?
So to Dr Jackson's point, drugs can and do get politicised all the time. If you have an organised and eloquent group of campaigners, they will be able to achieve more to get their drug of choice funded than those who don't have the resources.
Than those who don't have the lobby group, who don't have the organisational ability and access to publicity that others do. They just have to sit and wait patiently for their drug to come up on the Pharmac list.
Personally, I'd rather pay a maximum of $100 a year on my prescriptions than have to sell the house or, heaven forbid, set up and Give-a-little page to keep a loved one alive.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB where this article was sourced
National says it will allocate $280 million in ring-fenced funding to Pharmac over four years to pay for these therapies.
They say it's a better use of taxpayers’ money than paying the $5 prescription fees for everyone, including those who can afford to pay for it themselves.
National’s not throwing everybody under the bus re prescriptions though - they say superannuitants and those on low incomes will receive free prescriptions, as I understand it, a lot of people receive them free anyway if they fall into certain categories.
The total amount any family will pay for prescriptions in a year will be capped at $100, and that's how they're going to fund cancer treatments. People who can afford prescriptions will pay for them. Those who can’t - won't.
On the Mike Hosking Breakfast, Medical oncologist Dr Chris Jackson wasn't entirely enthusiastic, I think it's fair to say.
He believes there are a number of fishhooks in the policy of telling Pharmac what it should be funding. Dr Jackson also said they'd rather see the funding go towards the nurses, the doctors, the personnel who need to see these patients before you start talking about drug funding.
And probably worth noting, he is married to a Labour minister, Rachel Brooking. In this case, he was like, I don't think it's a good idea to politicise it. The money should have gone to more doctors, more nurses and more radiologists.
Except, Pharmac has been politicised before - remember Herceptin?
So to Dr Jackson's point, drugs can and do get politicised all the time. If you have an organised and eloquent group of campaigners, they will be able to achieve more to get their drug of choice funded than those who don't have the resources.
Than those who don't have the lobby group, who don't have the organisational ability and access to publicity that others do. They just have to sit and wait patiently for their drug to come up on the Pharmac list.
Personally, I'd rather pay a maximum of $100 a year on my prescriptions than have to sell the house or, heaven forbid, set up and Give-a-little page to keep a loved one alive.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB where this article was sourced
2 comments:
Never mind the lucky ones who get Pharmac drugs, or those soon to be on National's extended list, what about those unfortunates who get none of that and have to not only fund the required drugs out of their own pocket, but there's the Govt with its hand out for the GST. For some people that amounts to tens of thousands of dollars in GST alone. OK, don't mess with the latter if that's sacrosanct but, for goodness sake, give at least a subsidy to the tune of the equivalent.
But nah, it doesn't affect enough potential voters - just hope that it doesn't affect YOU!
I am sure we all agree that increased funding to Pharmac to fund treatments for these cancers should be a priority.
These most obvious way would be to simply provide Pharmac with a lump sum of the millions needed.
The money could be raised by simply having a "cancer treatment" tax of $100 per year on all people earning (for example) $60,000 a year or more.
The notion that the funding could be paid for by re introducing the $5 prescription tax will not work.
It is a failed model.
I was working for Medsafe as an Advisory Pharmacist, back in the 1980's when these prescription charges ( i.e. taxes) were introduced by the Ministry Head Office.
All of us Advisory Pharmacists in the district offices were opposed to these charges as we could see clearly that they would disadvantage the most vulnerable groups in our society, and would in fact act as a barrier to healthcare.
That was back in the 80's and 90's. The same situation is still happening today. It was a Public Health disaster. I witnessed it on daily basis until I retired in 2021.
In fact, even if you tried your hardest, you could hardly devise a policy more directed at worsening the health of the poor, the chronically sick and the elderly.
This raises the obvious question of how many serious health situations, deaths, expensive hospital admissions, etc over the years have been directly caused by patients not collecting their meds because of the $5 per item barrier ?
Researchers have, in fact, done just that. A controlled study (Uni of Otago) showed that $5 prescription charges increase hospital admissions by more than 30%. !
Some other researchers have calculated that every $5 fee not paid (i.e. every uncollected medication) leads to $18 being spent in secondary care costs.
So, even on a simple cost/benefit analysis, bringing these $5 charges back will COST many more millions than it will save !!
The suggestion that a targeted elimination of the $5 fee could be brought in, so that “only people who can afford it will pay” will not work in practice. It has not worked in the past. It will save very little money and only create more work for pharmacists, and will cause confusion amongst patients who will be unsure which side of the line they are on. Also the actual cost of setting up a bureaucracy to arrange this will be considerable
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