Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2014. This government is going to increase modestly the co-payment contributions by people in the Australian public. It is amazing to hear Labor when they want to increase a co-contribution, they call it a co-contribution and say it is for the benefit of the community, but, when anyone else does it, it is a medical tax. Such is their hypocrisy. Be that as it may, and focusing on the key aspects, the government has worked out that these contributions will generate savings of around $1.3 billion over four years. But we still expect the amount of money that the government spends on PBS to grow from $9.2 billion in 2013-14 to $10.2 billion in 2017-18.

Let me be very clear: we are not cutting funding to the PBS. The other thing I need to make clear is the amount of contribution the government makes to individual drugs that are listed for the benefit of Australians. The co-payment for general patients is currently $36.90 and will increase by $5 in addition to the CPI, but on average general patients use two PBS subsidised prescriptions a year—which will result in the average user contributing an additional $10 a year. For those who are on a concessional rate, including veterans and their dependants under the RPBS, the co-payment, which is currently $6, will increase by 80 cents in addition to the CPI. Of the Australian population 8.3 million out of 23 million have a concession card and people with concessional benefits use on average 17 prescriptions a year and under the new arrangements will pay an additional $13.60 per year for their subsidised medicines.

Some of the medicines that we have are massively subsidised by the taxpayer under the PBS, and so they should be. I will come to individual examples shortly. This week is National Diabetes Week, running from 13 to 19 July. It is of particular interest to me and it is something that is very close to me. In my electorate of Paterson there are roughly 3,000 people living with diabetes. In fact, there was a report showed that around 6.2 per cent of the population of Paterson has diabetes. This is well above the average in Australia for diabetes. I need to look at some of the medicines that are provided and supported. Let me give you an example, Deputy Speaker, of some of the insulins: their average cost is around $260 per prescription. They are provided to those on a concession for $6 currently, but it will go to $6.80 and to general patients for $38, which will go to $42.70.

Why diabetes is of particular interest to me is that this year, in January, I lost my brother Bill to diabetes. I watched what type 2 diabetes can do to people. It progressively ate away at his body. First his kidneys went, so then there was dialysis. Next gangrene crept up each leg and they progressively amputated each part of his leg. Finally his eyesight went, then problems with his skin and other conditions kicked in. It was a sad relief when he passed away in January this year—because I do not think he could have taken any more. The only thing he seemed to keep intact, aside from his ginger hair, was his rapier sharp wit. He will be sadly missed. So diabetes is something that resonates very strongly with me and that is why I think it is very important that we do everything we can to work with it.

But one of the biggest problems reported in medical studies is that those with type 2 diabetes refuse to recognise in themselves the signs and symptoms of type 2 diabetes—and ignore it. They ignore it until it is too late. What is even more concerning is that, once diagnosed, people do not follow the diet and exercise regimes that are laid out for them, which sees their quality of life deteriorate further.

A recent report about stroke highlighted that my electorate of Paterson features in the top 10 in Australia in two of the four major stroke risk factor categories. The report says that some 3,569 people are living with the effects of stroke and that around 427 people are added to that each and every year. (Quorum formed) Strokes are a major concern and Paterson is a hot spot. That is only going to be exacerbated by the fact that, as another recent report showed, Paterson has one of the highest rates of increase in its age demographic. These three diseases, or afflictions, are the most critical for us to address—diabetes, stroke and dementia. As I said earlier, these afflictions impose a high cost. In the Port Stephens area of my electorate, the over-65 population is set to almost double in the next 20 years. That will have an impact not only on aged-care services but also on the requirement for pharmaceuticals in the region. So making sure that we have the finances available—the capacity to list more and new drugs—to help people is critical.

I recently saw a list of the top 50 generic drugs on the PBS ranked by cost to government. The most money is spent on cholesterol drugs. We spend $1.2 billion of Commonwealth money in subsidising medicines for cholesterol. We spend nearly $700 million a year as a government on drugs for the treatment of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. We spend $191 million on antidepressants, $242 million on blood pressure medications, $121 million on bowel cancer drugs and $218 million on diabetes medications. For stroke, it is around $320 million. These are only those drugs that are listed in the top 50 drugs being dispensed. We spend $172 million on drugs for herpes. All of this emphasises how many in the community are reliant on such medications and the extremely high cost to the government of our contribution, through the PBS, to supporting individuals. Two other types of drugs on which we spend a lot are reflux drugs and medications for rheumatoid arthritis, both of which come in at well over $400 million.

People need to understand that the cost of some of these drugs can be up to, say, $2,000. You can pay $3,900 for a leukaemia drug, for which there were 24,572 prescriptions last year. But the cost to the government was $97 million. That is a lot of money, but spending money on treating people is money well spent—nobody begrudges a cent of it. In fact there are many more drugs that could be listed and supplied to people to help give a better quality of life or, in particular, to extend life. Having lost a number of friends and family members to various diseases in the past year or two, I understand the importance of providing these drugs, getting drugs through the TGA in a respectable time and making sure that the drug companies are providing them at an affordable cost to the government, so that they can be supplied to the community.

This week is National Diabetes Week and my take home message is this: observe the signs and symptoms of diabetes. If you are diagnosed with it, take note of the action plans that are laid out for you in relation to personal health care, exercise and diet to mitigate the effect on your body. In relation to stroke, there are so many things that can be done to avoid stroke such as increasing our circulation, and avoiding smoking and excess eating. Both of those things can have an effect on an individual and increase their susceptibility to those two diseases. The other affliction, of course, is dementia—one of the increasingly-diagnosed illnesses in our community—for which, as yet, there is no cure. I am hoping that some of this money that is raised, saved and put away into the medical research fund actually does find the cure for dementia. (Quorum formed)

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