Fact check failure – Guild
September 19, 2013
The Pharmacy Guild has firmly
rejected the analysis of the price
disclosure issue by the ABC ‘Fact
Check’ team (PD yesterday), saying
it contains “glaring omissions”
which reflect a failure by the ABC to
check with any of the pharmacies
that will be affected by the change.
The Guild issued a robust rebuttal
of the claims in the ABC report
which concluded that the Guild’s
campaign had “exaggerated” the
impact of price disclosure.
“The Guild rejects this analysis,
and stands by all of the statements
which have been made since
the decision of the Rudd Labor
Government, two days before
the election, to accelerate price
disclosure of PBS medicines
without consultation with the
industry,” it said in a statement.
The Guild said that despite
claiming exaggeration, Fact Check
acknowledges that “marginal
pharmacies may be pushed over
the edge by the reduction in
revenue six months earlier than
expected…” - a tacit admission that
the Guild is correct in its analysis
that some pharmacies will be
forced to reduce services, cut jobs,
or close as a result of this measure.
“Nothing in the Fact Check
indicates that the ABC bothered to
check with any of the pharmacies
that will be directly affected...these
pharmacies are telling the Guild
in droves about the impact of this
change.
“We also presume that the
ABC did not talk to any of the
accountants or financial advisers
who work with pharmacies on
these issues,” the Guild added.
The Guild’s furious response also
notes that the ABC suggestion that
pharmacies have had plenty of time
to adjust to the changes, omitted
the key fact that in previous price
disclosure changes there had been
an “actual financial adjustment to
remuneration, which is glaringly
absent in the 2013 change
announced two days before the
election was called”.
The Guild’s verdict is that “ABC
Fact Check has no credible status to
adjudicate this matter”.
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