In the financial year ending June 2015 the Australian Government processed a total of 192.25 million PBS concessional prescriptions (including Safety Net prescriptions) for a population of over 23 million – a 2.6 per cent volume increase representing a -3.9 per cent cost-to-government decrease on the previous financial year.
So it is hard to imagine why Malcolm Turnbull & Co or the government appointed Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee thought this additional cost cutting measure which would be well-received.
The Sydney Morning Herald reporting on 16 July 2016:
Hospitals faced a surge of type two diabetes patients over the past three years, alarming health insurance companies about their growing medical bills.
NSW recorded the biggest increase, with 20 per cent more patients admitted to hospital due to type two diabetes in 2015 compared to 2013, according to statistics collected by Medibank on its members.
The growth in admissions was as high as 42 per cent in Sydney's central suburbs, compared to a national average increase of 15 per cent.
Medibank chief medical officer Linda Swan said the figures sent a clear signal to the health fund that it needed to staunch the spiralling cost of type two diabetes.
"We've been hearing about the epidemic of diabetes for years, but it's not until you see the stark reality that you see this is growing at an extraordinary rate and clearly we're not doing enough," Dr Swan said.
One day later in The Age:
Diabetics will pay 50 times more for strips that help them monitor their blood sugar levels after the government removed the subsidy, raising concerns about more health complications as the condition of those patients spins out of control.
The federal government removed the subsidy on blood glucose test strips for people with type two diabetes who are not insulin dependent effective July 1, though there will be a six-month transition period…..
About 900,000 people with type two diabetes are registered with the National Diabetes Services Scheme and more than two-thirds of them are not insulin dependent.
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