PAMI (Argentina's Medicare) reduces list of free drugs for the elderly.
The Macri administration's decision to end subsidies on some 150 prescription drugs for beneficiaries of the PAMI public health insurance program was criticized by the Pharmacists and Biochemists’ Association in Buenos Aires, whose president, Claudio Ucchino, said that the list of medicines to be affected by the subsidy cut and price hikes included “important antibiotics” and other key medicines that pensioners relied on.
“There are important antibiotics such as amoxicillin with ambroxol, such as butetamate, which are products that are widely used in winter because the elderly can have bronchitis or other pathologies,” Ucchino said.
Ucchino added that the Pharmacists and Biochemists’ Association had not been consulted by PAMI prior to its decision to end the subsidies. Congresswoman Mirta Tundis of the Renewal Front (the centrist wing of Peronism) suggested that alongside other economic austerity measures being taken by the government, PAMI’s decision would affect pensioners severely.
“It’s very bad news because it is instead of expanding the list of coverage, it’s shrinking it,” she said, adding that the move would in effect “take more money out of the pockets” of pensioners.
PAMI Director Carlos Regazzoni justified his decision to cut subsidies across the range of medicines. “Before we excluded these drugs we had consultations with experts, including international experts, and in no country in the world are these drugs covered 100 percent,” Regazzoni said, adding that the the wide-ranging subsidies now annulled by PAMI included many drugs “that had little benefit for people. They use them; but the clinical effect is very low.”
PAMI, established in 1972, covers medical costs for some 4.6 million Argentine senior citizens and manages a budget of nearly $7 billion - 86% of which goes to reimburse medical care.
At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/212166/staterun-pami-thins-list-of-free-drugs-for-the-elderly
= new reply since forum marked as read
[center]
Carlos Regazzoni
[/center]