Australians with chronic conditions could save more than $80 a year as plans to cut prescription medicine costs receive bipartisan support.
But threats from big US pharmaceutical companies could throw a spanner in the works.
The maximum price Australians would pay for prescription medicines listed under the government’s subsidy scheme will be reduced from $31.60 to $25 from January 1 under a Labor proposal matched by the coalition.
Many medications listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme are life-saving but about eight per cent of Australians and one in 10 living in socio-economically disadvantaged areas delayed or skipped their prescriptions because of costs, Australian Bureau of Statistics data found.
“There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t speak with a patient who’s struggling to make ends meet,” practising pharmacist and Pharmacy Guild of Australia vice-president Anthony Tassone told AAP.
“‘Can I get all my medicines that I need today? Is there one that I could probably put off?
“How important is this medicine to take’ – having less of those conversations is welcome.”
If scheme payments had continued to be indexed, Australians could be paying up to $50 per script by 2026, the guild warned.
But under Labor’s $689 million plan four out of five PBS medicines would become cheaper, saving Australians $200 million every year and reducing the scheme’s patient cost cap to its lowest level in two decades.
“The biggest winners are those who need to take medicines for chronic conditions every month,” Mr Tassone said.
This includes people with heart conditions and asthma and those who need higher-cost injectable medicines such as people with arthritis.
While the PBS has unanimous support in Australia, big US pharmaceutical companies resent not being able to extract maximum profits from Australians for their essential medicines.
One of America’s peak lobby groups has urged President Donald Trump to add Australian medicine manufacturers to his tariff hit list but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has backed the scheme.
“It’s not surprising there is a push and some opposition to the PBS but let me be very clear and explicit – the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is not for sale,” he said during a speech in the Gold Coast on Thursday.
In a 243-page submission to the US government, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) claimed “egregious and discriminatory” pricing policies in places such as Australia were undervaluing American innovation and threatening billions of dollars in lost sales.
PBS listings in particular dictate access to the Australian market and “unnecessary” supplemental data requests alongside other administrative motions cause significant delays, the group said.
Medicines Australia, which represents the domestic pharmaceutical industry, backs the PBS and said tariffs would not make sense because the US sends more medicines to Australia than vice versa.
But the Americans’ submission highlights areas that could be strengthened to reduce delays, chief executive Liz de Somer said.
“The only people that suffer from the delay are patients,” she told AAP.
The amount Australians have had to pay for PBS medicines had steadily increased for decades but in 2022, the coalition promised to slash the cost from $42.50 to $32.50 and when Labor was elected soon after, it enacted the change and further reduced prices to $30.
The cap was indexed in 2024, pushing it up to $31.60 but this re-election proposal would cut the maximum cost by $6.60.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the coalition supported the PBS plan.
“It’s good for prevention, it’s good for people to have well-managed medication programs and you get better health outcomes in the system,” he told 2GB radio.
Australian Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national newswire and has been delivering accurate, reliable and fast news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We keep Australia informed.
