The fever of pharmaceutical spending in hospitals continues to rise: in the first three months of 2011 it recorded a loss of 569 million, almost double the maximum annual budget available. As if to say that at the end of the year the deficit – entirely borne by the Regions – will be around 2.2-2.4 billion. On the other hand, the accounts of expenditure in pharmacies for pills and syrups paid for by the State go against the trend, which in the first quarter recorded a drop of 6.2 percent compared to a year ago. However, with one fact that catches the eye: the increase in the 26% of tickets paid by Italians, increasingly subjected to a copayment which, among other things, from mid-April is destined to grow even more dizzying following the application of the "refund price" launched by AIFA in application of the summer maneuver of 2010.
It is also with these very fresh data available – anticipated by the weekly «Il Sole-24 Ore Sanità» – that the Government, as part of the maneuver, is leafing through the complicated pharmaceutical dossier and not just thinking about standard costs. A two-faced dossier, with the pharmacy accounts they keep and those in the hospital that explode. A very delicate match, which calls into question a sector of health expenditure on which savings have been concentrated several times in recent years, while companies, which tomorrow will elect the new president of Farmindustria, are demanding certainties and threatening to divest in Italy.
Hospital pharmaceuticals – a real thorn in the side for the governors – are first in the eye of the storm. In three months, from January to March, the "ceiling" stood at 4.4% of the entire health expenditure, against a limit of 2.4 per cent. All Regions are in red: from the maximum peak of 6.1% in the Marches to 2.8% in Molise. However, with deficits ranging from 111.2 million in Lombardy (exactly double the budget) to 655 thousand euros in the Marches.
Instead, they keep accounts at the pharmacy. Despite the increase in consumption (+2% of prescriptions), in three months in the first quarter of the year savings amounted to 223 million, 0.8% below the ceiling of 13.3. But always with strong regional excursions: from the maximum ceiling in Sicily (15.5% against the 13.3% budget) to 9.8% in Bolzano. All of the South, except Calabria, would be extra-protected. But the co-payments paid by citizens are growing everywhere, especially for the sharing of the reference price when buying a designer drug rather than a generic one. In Puglia and Campania there was a boom: +111% in ninety days. Just the appetizer of what has happened (but not yet accounted for) since mid-April with the entry into force of the reimbursement price on generics.
Roberto Turno – 21 June 2011
