Greece May Cut $1.3 Billion in Drug Spending

[parker1b2]

A potential problem for a single payer healthcare system:

Greece May Cut $1.3 Billion in Drug Spending This Year

"Patients will make bigger co-payments for medicines, wholesalers and pharmacies will have lower margins, and doctors will be made to prescribe more generic products, according to a draft document of a plan for cuts through 2014, approved by Greek lawmakers this week."

www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-15/greece-may-cut-1-3-billion-in-drug-spending-this-year.html

And before everyone says that more generics is better, remember that there is on the low end a 20-30% variance in generic medications compared to branded.

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

Greece needs major surgery on its govt entitlement spending.
$1.3 billion in drug spending is like putting a bandaid on a cut, thinking it will cure a gangrened leg.

The entire Greek situation is rather comical. That is just my take on the whole thing over there.

[handyman2]

Parker1b2: I have to agree that some generics are not better. They are supposed to be the exact same formula and manufacturing process. However like in my case I take synthroid. We tried the generic formula of that drug. For some reason that I do not know why they were not as effective as the orginal brand. My doctor agreed they did not work but she to does not know why but is aware that it is a problem. Like I say this may not be true for all generic drugs but it is true in my case.

[reasonfreedom]

I see Greece as a 2-bladed sword, either way they swing it will not look pretty. The sad thing is if the congress, senate and administration keep up their bs, we will eventually get to that point.

[Deleted]

I can take lyvoxyl... But other generic synthroids don't work for me...

[Deleted]

Don't worry. When the US does it, this time it will work....

[djAdvocate]

Feb 15, 2012 8:28:20 GMT -5 parker1b2 said:

A potential problem for a single payer healthcare system:

Greece May Cut $1.3 Billion in Drug Spending This Year

if anything, they should increase drug spending. they are going to need it.

[reasonfreedom]

Feb 15, 2012 11:05:55 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Feb 15, 2012 8:28:20 GMT -5 parker1b2 said:

A potential problem for a single payer healthcare system:

Greece May Cut $1.3 Billion in Drug Spending This Year

if anything, they should increase drug spending. they are going to need it.

ROFLMAO, that was good. #breath#

[naggie1972]

Synthroid and Wellbutrin are two brands that I find do not agree with me in generics, however Atenolol and xanax generics are fine.

[Deleted]

I read recently that several pharmacies are running out of drugs in Greece. The enacted price controls have made it more profitable to ship drugs elsewhere.

Over the last year and a half, the government has cut drug prices, in some cases by up to 25 percent. The aim was to trim a national health bill that totaled more than €13 billion ($17 billion) in 2010, or about 5 percent of GDP.

The result, drugmakers say, has been an acceleration in the siphoning of their products out of Greece as wholesalers send their shipments to countries whose governments still pay higher prices. Reimbursement fraud and strained public finances aggravate the problem.

Greek pharmacists say they now spend their days pleading with drugmakers and wholesalers to hunt down medicines for clients.

Insurers now often delay payments to pharmacies, which can’t pay suppliers on time. Wholesalers used to front pharmacies the money for deliveries. Now that drugmakers are increasingly demanding upfront cash from the wholesalers, wholesalers are asking pharmacies to do the same. “Wholesalers simply do not have the money anymore to play bank to the pharmacies,” says Kobelt.

Public insurers owe pharmacists some €330 million for drugs bought since April, says Dimitris Karageorgiou, vice-chairman of the pharmacists’ association. Payment can take three months to a year, say pharmacists; not all can afford the wait. An invoice provided to Bloomberg News shows Roche Holding (ROG:VX) requesting €926 in advance from a pharmacy for NeoRecormon, a medicine that treats anemia in chemotherapy and chronic kidney disease patients. Roche extends credit to pharmacies and in some cases has extended credit limits to ensure patients can get drugs, says Daniel Grotzky, a company spokesman. “This might be a pharmacy which has used up its credit line,” he says.

Last year, Roche switched to a payment-on-delivery policy for hospitals with a history of nonpayment. Before getting tough, Roche had accepted Greek government bonds as payment of 400 million Swiss francs ($426.7 million) owed by Greek hospitals. Last July, Roche Chief Financial Officer Alan Hippe said the company sold its bonds at a 26 percent discount.

www.businessweek.com/magazine/another-greek-crisis-a-drug-shortage-01262012.html

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

That is an awesome article Anne. I have to save that link.

From the first sentence: In crisis-wracked Greece, even finding aspirin can be a pain.

[naggie1972]

Don't know what the issue is here but it was difficult to get adderall last year, and the ability to get RX is one of the things H thinks about should we have a Greek like crisis.

[illinicheme]

Feb 15, 2012 9:20:26 GMT -5 handyman2 said:

Parker1b2: I have to agree that some generics are not better. They are supposed to be the exact same formula and manufacturing process.

The active pharmaceutical ingredient is chemically identical in branded products versus generics, but the formulation does not have to be identical as long as the generic company can demonstrate equivalent bioavailability. As a previous poster noted, there is some allowable variation in bioavailability.

In general, most generics are going to be indistinguishable from their branded counterparts for most patients. But there are always exceptions.