But is it really so? The study is actually quite complex and it is difficult to interpret unequivocally. Certainly the industries – as Sirchia has had the opportunity to underline with a certain polemical verve – still play an important role in the increase in pharmaceutical spending. The heart of the research, carried out by Mapelli, concerns the analysis of pharmaceutical consumption in 2000, relating to a large Northern Local Health Authority. There are three salient points: the identikit of consumers, the effect of the abolition of the ticket and the projections to 2010. The first point examined starts from the assumption that today the Healthcare Information System lacks a criterion for dividing patients. A fact that makes it more difficult to govern spending. With reference to the ASL examined, the elderly who numerically account for 16% of the assisted, absorb 49.7% of the packages and 46.9% of the gross pharmaceutical expenditure. Expenditure is evidently induced in particular by the chronically ill, who are 52.7% of the patients. In the context of chronic diseases (63.8% of all expenditure), hypertension absorbs the greatest resources (38.5%), followed by diabetes (14.9%) and tumors (12.3%). And the tickets? Their abolition in 2001, also questioned during the round table by Enrico Morando himself, Vice-President of the Senate Economic Planning and Budget Commission and member of the center-left majority that had decided on the measure, provided the author of the research with the starting point for an analysis of the behavior of the beneficiaries with respect to this direct participation in spending. The conclusion was that the elasticity (ie the reactivity to price changes) of consumption upon the abolition of the ticket was rather low. A sign that the bulk of pharmaceutical expenditure is in rigid demand and that the measure has not greatly controlled consumption. In summary: there was little to reduce.
By Marco Malagutti
Source
Press conference, Milan, 14 February 2005
From www.dica33.it
Press conference, Milan, 14 February 2005
From www.dica33.it
