“I am a staunch supporter of the need for our country's institutional set-up to rapidly complete its transformation into a federalist key; but, at the same time, I am absolutely against introducing 'de facto', even if not 'in principle', a sort of pharmaceutical federalism in our healthcare system”, states Romano Colozzi (Councillor for the Budget of the Lombardy Region) in an editorial published by "Il Revisore".
"A series of measures approved by various regions, in an attempt to keep pharmaceutical expenditure under control, seems - explains Colozzi - to go precisely in this direction, with the provision of real "regional pharmaceutical formularies", different from the national one, approved by AIFA, as required by current legislation. With respect to this problem, the most recent one assumes considerable importance sentence of the Constitutional Court, the n. 44 of 8 February 2010, which, confirming previous judgments of the Court, has placed very heavy mortgages on the possibility of the regions to modify the prescription regimes of drugs to their liking. In particular, it is reiterated:
• that the Regions can intervene on the subject of reimbursement and prescribability of medicines only through acts of an administrative and non-legislative nature, being the exclusive competence in this matter of the State pursuant to article 117 of the Constitution;
• that this administrative deed represents the arrival point of a special procedure characterized by the decisive evaluation role of a specific national technical body (AIFA).
I think the time has come to put some order in this matter, using the advisory function not only of the State, but also of the Regions, attributed by law to the Italian Medicines Agency, with a view to going beyond the regional Handbooks and an organic review of all the provisions and procedures in place in the regions that have an impact on the reimbursement and prescribability of drugs and on the times for making new pharmaceutical specialties available compared to those determined by the AIFA resolutions published in the Official Journal.
I think the time has come to put some order in this matter, using the advisory function not only of the State, but also of the Regions, attributed by law to the Italian Medicines Agency, with a view to going beyond the regional Handbooks and an organic review of all the provisions and procedures in place in the regions that have an impact on the reimbursement and prescribability of drugs and on the times for making new pharmaceutical specialties available compared to those determined by the AIFA resolutions published in the Official Journal.
This is the only way - concludes Colozzi - to avoid that, more or less surreptitiously, the unity in the provision of the LEA guaranteed for all citizens by our Constitution is called into question ".
(red/17.02.10) – regions.it
