Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1832
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Coultan M.
Bitter pill poppers cut costs
Sydney Morning Herald 2005 Jul 20
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bitter-pill-poppers-cut-costs/2005/07/19/1121538975659.html
Keywords:
governor Illinois Rod Blagojevich Wisconsin Jim Doyle Ujjal Dosanjh I-saveRx New Zealand Pharmacy Guild Western Australia
Notes:
Ralph Faggotter’s Comments: These American state governors with their I-saveRx scheme seem to be fighting a peculiar but losing battle against Big Pharma which clearly has more clout in Washington. How will they persuade NZ/Australian doctors to prescribe drugs for patients they have never seen? What will be the medico-legal ramifications for these doctors?
Full text:
Bitter pill poppers cut costs
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bitter-pill-poppers-cut-costs/2005/07/19/1121538975659.html
By Mark Coultan Herald Correspondent in New York
July 20, 2005
The US has the highest prices for medicines in the world, so five
American states have decided to import them from Australia.
The governors of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, and Wisconsin, Jim Doyle,
announced the plan because they feared that US drug companies could cut
off access to cheaper drugs from Canada.
Under US pressure, the Canadian Health Minister, Ujjal Dosanjh, recently
announced moves to restrict the export of personal prescription drugs,
saying Canada could not be a discount drugstore for the US.
The scheme, I-SaveRx, operates in Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri
and Vermont and allows residents to buy cheaper drugs by having
prescriptions, written by American doctors, filled in other countries,
including Canada, Ireland and Britain.
The scheme began last October and 61,000 people have enrolled. A report
into importing Australian drugs said they were, on average, 51 per cent
cheaper than in the US. Canadian drugs are 31 per cent cheaper.
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Under the scheme, American patients ask their GPs for prescriptions,
which are sent to I-saveRx, which reviews them and forwards them to
Canadian, British or Irish doctors for “further review”. They are then
sent to pharmacies in those countries and posted to the patients.
It is illegal to export Australian drugs subsidised by the
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme but other drugs are often cheaper in
Australia because drug manufacturers have to compete with PBS-approved
medicines.
The combined population of the five US states participating in the
I-SaveRx scheme is more than the population of Australia and a
potentially large market for Australian drug manufacturers and pharmacists.
But the scheme faces severe hurdles, not the least in getting Australian
doctors to write prescriptions for patients they have never seen.
The report into expanding the scheme to purchase cheaper drugs from
Australia said: “The Australian authorities and pharmacy regulators did
not have any concerns with Australian pharmacies filling prescriptions
under the I-SaveRx program.”
But a close reading of the report reveals that although it spoke to an
official from the PBS and the Pharmacy Guild of Western Australia, its
compilers apparently did not speak to doctors’ groups or the Australian
Government.
But it did say that there was uncertainty about the legality of New
Zealand doctors rewriting US prescriptions, and therefore the scheme
would import only over-the-counter medicines from New Zealand.
I-SaveRx is restricted to drugs that are used for long periods and that
cannot spoil during transport. Only repeat prescriptions are allowed
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