Pharmacy Daily | PBS spending under control

PBS spending is well under control, according to Medicines Australia chief executive Dr Brendan Shaw. Shaw’s comments follow the release of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s latest report published this month, titled Health expenditure Australia 2010-11. According to the report expenditure on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was stable despite spending on overall medicines growing by $2.1 billion. “While people have been warning that the ageing population will bankrupt the country, these figures on Australia’s health spending suggest that the sky isn’t falling on our heads any time soon,” Shaw said. “The report shows that PBS expenditure is fairly flat,” he added. The report itself found that over $130b was spent on health in 2010– 11, up from $122.5b in 2009–10. The report also found that in 2010–11, health expenditure as a percentage of GDP was 9.3%, compared to 9.4% in 2009–10, and that growth in health expenditure has largely been driven by increases in the volume of health goods and services purchased, rather than the price of services. Other interesting factors highlighted in the paper include the fact that in 2010–11, the estimated average level of recurrent expenditure on health was $5,796 per person. In addition, the largest component of the increase in expenditure in 2010–11 was a $2.2 billion rise in spending on public hospitals, followed by spending on medications, which grew by $2.1 billion. Almost 70% of total health expenditure during 2010–11 was funded by governments, with the Australian Government contributing 42.7%, and state and territory governments contributing 26.4%. The remaining 30.9% was funded by individuals, private health insurers, and other nongovernment sources, the report found. Meanwhile the Australian Government's share of public hospital funding was 40.3% in 2010–11, whilst State and territory governments' share of public hospital expenditure was 49.5% in 2010–11, down from 50.5% in 2009–10 but up compared to 2000–01 (47.2%).

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