Status: 12/20/2022 3:19 pm
Syrups for fever and cough are rare. Health Minister Lauterbach wants to change that with an amendment to the law. As this would make some drugs more expensive, insurers talk of a “gift to the pharmaceutical companies”.
The key issues paper by Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) against shortages of various drugs provoked different reactions.
The statutory health insurance companies (GKV) were critical. National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds CEO Doris Pfeiffer said raising the lump sum for certain children’s drugs or cancer therapies by a flat rate of 50% was “an impressive Christmas present for pharmaceutical companies.” It is not clear whether the drugs will be delivered to Europe more reliably in the future or whether even more will be produced again.
Rather than relying solely on the short-term effects that policyholders would have to fund with their contributions, policymakers are expected to take a Europe-wide strategic approach, Pfeiffer emphasized.
What Health Minister Lauterbach is planning against drug shortages
Nicole Kohnert/Eckhardt Wolf, ARD Berlin, daily topics 22:10, December 20, 2022
Health insurance statutory physicians satisfied with the proposal
According to the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), however, Lauterbach’s proposal goes in the right direction. “It is the right approach to, among other things, relax pricing rules for children’s drugs and abolish fixed price and discount agreements,” said Stephan Hofmeister, executive vice president of KBV.
FDP for law changes
Lauterbach also gets policy approval. She welcomes the key issues document, said FDP health policy spokeswoman Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus of the AFP news agency. Drug shortages have been overlooked for decades.
Lauterbach’s party friend, SPD leader Saskia Esken, also welcomed his initiative. “The State has a duty to act here.” The supply of vital drugs, in particular, must be “separated from purely economic interests”, she told the dpa news agency.
Lauterbach presented a paper on key issues
Lauterbach had already announced significant changes to pricing rules in his key issues paper in response to supply bottlenecks, especially for children’s drugs. He therefore wants to ensure that price regulations for children’s medicines are relaxed, medicines from European manufacturers are brought back into operation and stocks of cheaper medicines are built up. Financial incentives are also intended to make adult cancer drugs and antibiotics more readily available.
To achieve this, statutory health insurers must be able to pay up to 1.5 times the previous maximum amount for drugs required in case of strangulation. Co-payment for drugs by patients, on the other hand, should be limited.
Drugs must return from Europe
One reason for the shortage of cancer drugs and antibiotics is that health insurance companies have to contract with the cheapest manufacturers and pharmacies can only sell these drugs. Production was concentrated in low-wage countries and the number of suppliers dropped.
According to the plans, manufacturers that produce cancer drugs and antibiotics in Europe are to be considered again in future tenders. This should cause production to pick up again, Lauterbach said on the joint ARD and ZDF morning show.
In order to avoid future bottlenecks in the supply of necessary medicines, the Federal Ministry of Health plans to develop criteria that will help to identify problems at an early stage. The measures taken should be evaluated by the end of 2025.
Dangerous drug exchange
In the morning magazine, on the other hand, Lauterbach classified as dangerous a kind of exchange agreement with medicines that were barely available.
The idea originally came from the president of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt. In an interview with a newspaper, he had suggested organizing “flea markets to buy medicine in the neighborhood” in view of the shortage of medicine, especially for children.
Pediatrician Tilman Kaethner, a board member of the professional association of pediatricians, is as skeptical as Lauterbach. This was unrealistic and not thought through to the end, he said in an interview with the Evangelical Press Service. However, if neighbors help each other with fever juices or other over-the-counter “home remedies”, then there is nothing to say against this. “A lot has already been done anyway,” he explained.
Karl Lauterbach, SPD, Minister of Health, on drug supply in Germany
Morning Magazine, December 20, 2022