China News Service, February 23. According to Taiwan's "United Daily News", Taiwan's health and welfare department "National Health Insurance Administration" announced the latest drug price adjustment, which will reduce Taiwan's health insurance expenditure by 5.53 billion yuan (NT$, the same below). The new drug price is expected to Officially launched on April 1st.
Huang Huangshun, chairman of the Taiwan Pharmacists Association, said that most of the drugs that were slashed this time were "old drugs", most of which were used for chronic diseases, with as many as 6 million patients.
If drug dealers believe that the price of drugs does not meet the cost, causing these drugs to withdraw from the health insurance market one after another, the public may face a situation where no drugs are available.
File photo from Taiwan’s United Daily News.
According to reports, Taiwan's "Health Insurance Agency" announced the latest drug price adjustment, with 14,000 items under review and 4,568 items adjusted, of which 4,551 were lowered and 17 were raised. The three categories with the largest decreases were cardiovascular, Nervous system, systemic anti-infective agents.
Huang Yuwen, head of the medical review and medicinal materials team of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Administration, said that this drug price adjustment will reduce Taiwan’s health insurance expenditure by 5.53 billion yuan, with an overall increase of 2.8%. The new drug prices will officially go into effect on April 1.
Huang Huangshun, chairman of the Taiwan Pharmacists Association, said that among the amount of drug price cuts this time, "old drugs" that have been covered by health insurance for more than 15 years accounted for 93%. Almost most of them are drugs for chronic diseases, and drugs for chronic diseases account for the largest number of users in Taiwan. There are 6 million.
The COVID-19 epidemic has just ended, and raw materials have increased again. If drug dealers believe that the drug prices do not meet the cost, these drugs will be withdrawn from the health insurance market. "What will happen to the 6 million patients with chronic diseases then?"
Huang Huangshun also pointed out that community pharmacies are at the end of the drug supply system and need to prepare medicines and wait for doctors to issue prescriptions. The drug payment prices will be adjusted on April 1. If the medicines are prepared before March 31, the prices must be reduced starting from April. Therefore, if the medicine is not given, “Who should be responsible if the people cannot get the medicine?”
Huang Huangshun said that because of the high prices of new drugs, the prices of old drugs have been cut, which is almost "not far from the edge of death." After all, after the price cuts of drugs last year, there were successively no drugs available.
In response to this matter, many netizens on the island have left messages questioning, "Many original drugs have withdrawn from the Taiwan market. Is this mechanism of cutting drug prices every year correct?" "Who are the new drugs intended to benefit?" "Where has the budget been diverted?" "People may have no medicine, but they are said to be saving money."