Bloody nit picking assholes, chipping away at the prescriptions of Australia's most ill people. If you need regular prescriptions to survive this will affect you. Just fuckin assholes. Labor and the Greens already oppose it in the senate, so it will be up to the crossbenchers to kill it.
Currently us pensioners pay $6.10 a prescription. Yesterday I spent over $30 at the chemist which is a lot on the pension. The gov wants to raise that to $6.90. I know if you have a full time job that doesn't sound like much, but try being on a pension paying private rent in Sydney and that is a huge jump. A 13% jump in fact. Already on a knife edge, how the fuck are we supposed to cop that? Pull the money out of our ass?
Currently those who work, if they spend around $1,500 a year on prescriptions then they go to the safety net and only pay $6.10 after that for the rest of the calendar year. The gov wants to increase this amount to qualify for that by 10% a year for 4 years. That would take it right out of the ball park for many, who although ill still struggle and retain work. Yes, vulnerable people. Even if they do qualify they'll have to spend the increased amount of $6.90.
Currently pensioners get free prescriptions after 52 prescriptions per calendar year. The gov wants to increase that amount by 2 prescriptions a year for 4 years. Fuckin nit picking assholes.
So much for cheaper meds, as promised by that fuckin lying "it's not my fault" bitch Sussan Ley (pictured). Nothing more than Lieberal doublespeak. Un-Australian, to try and give cheaper meds to the masses at the expense of the most ill/vulnerable. Two faced un-christian assholes.
Well now that I've made clear how I feel, I'd guess likely it won't pass the senate.
Again, the budget rhetoric is that this is better than last years and all soft and fuzzy. Bullshit. It unfairly targets the Australians doing it the toughest, just like last years.
Health Minister Sussan Ley on Monday announced an agreement with the Pharmacy Guild which she said would deliver "cheaper, more affordable medicines for consumers", partly because pharmacies will have the option of cutting the patient contribution by $1 per script.
However, from January the government proposes to increase the amount patients have to pay each year before they qualify for free or more heavily discounted scripts under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme safety net.
Currently, after general patients spend $1453.90 in a year on PBS medicines, they get further scripts for the rest of that year for $6.10 each. Under the budget proposal, this threshold will be increased by 10 per cent each year for four years, in addition to indexation in line with the consumer price index, eventually adding several hundred dollars to the amount patients must spend before qualifying for relief.
The threshold for concessional patients, currently $366, will increase by two scripts each year for four years, so that by 2019 they will be paying for eight more prescriptions a year before qualifying for free scripts.
The safety net changes are part of a bill currently before the Senate which the government estimates will save more than $1 billion over four years. The bill also includes proposals to increase the patient contribution for general patients by $5 a script and for concessional patients by 80¢ a script.
With Labor and the Greens opposed to the changes, the government will need to secure crossbench support to get them through the upper house.
On Monday Ms Ley distanced herself from the proposal to increase PBS patient contributions, describing it as "a separate measure I inherited from the last budget", and stressing the $1 discount and other measures to make medicines cheaper would not be contingent upon the proposal. more
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