Hopes are high the Government will include the removal of
the “patient co-payment” prescription fee in this week’s
Budget, says Prescription Access Initiative (PAI)
pharmacists, after politicians on both sides of the House
publicly supported the fee removal earlier this
month.
“The many reasons to urgently remove the fee
are compelling,” said PAI spokesperson Vicky Chan. Research
shows removing the fee of $5 per item would reduce
hospitalisations in the over-stretched health system;
increase well-being, equity and productivity by lowering
illness, pain and related work absences; support the
survival of vital community pharmacy services; and ease the
cost-of-living crisis for everyone.
“Any one of these
reasons on its own is enough to recommend prescription fee
removal. All together, they are an avalanche of neon signs,
all pointing to fee removal,” Chan said.
Green MP
Chloe Swarbrick and Act MP Brooke Van Velden both said they
support prescription co-payment removal recently on TVNZ
Breakfast. “Such a rare agreement between Green and Act MPs
shows fee removal has widespread approval,” said Chan.
“It’s the obvious thing to do.”
Van Velden described
large corporates paying the fee themselves in a loss leader
strategy as “anti-competitive”. Some community pharmacies
have already closed as a result, said Chan. “And that means
communities lose services such as medicine delivery,
personalised health advice and vaccinations. Universal fee
removal would help prevent this.”
The Government has
had enough time to put prescription fee removal in this
year’s Budget, said Chan. “Months ago, University of Otago
released research showing the prescription fee is leading to
large numbers of unnecessary
hospitalisations.
“Meanwhile, PAI’s own recent
pharmacist survey showed people are ending up with
amputations due to diabetes complications because the
co-payment fee makes their insulin prescriptions
unaffordable.”
Removing the fee is likely to be
fiscally neutral, or even positive once productivity is
taken into account, said Chan.
“And the relief of
prescription co-payment fee removal would be immediate for
everyone. We could focus on health and wellbeing. It’s a
popular move, and it deserves to
be.”
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