To take a loanable medicine from the pharmacy, the rules can be very different both in terms of prescribing limits and as regards the payment of the co-payment. And if they are not provided for in 9 regions, Lazio leads the ranking of regions in which the non-exempt citizen pays the most: 4 euros for drugs that cost more than 5 euros and 2.50 euros for those that have a price lower than 5 euros. This is explained by the Health & Rights Observatory of the Citizen Defense Movement (Mdc), which produced the dossier "Health cages" to take stock of this situation. And, if in Valle d'Aosta, the Province of Trento, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, Basilicata and Sardinia there is no payment for medicines to be paid by the patient, citizens who do not benefit from particular exemptions and who live in Sicily, Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, Veneto and Puglia, must bear the cost of the ticket of 2 euros for each package, regardless of the price of the medicine. Followed by Abruzzo, which charges non-exempt 2 euros per package but if the price of the drug is less than 5 euros, the co-payment drops to 0.50 euros; Calabria, which charges non-exempt 1 euro per prescription plus 2 euro per package; Campania (1.50 euros per pack) and Molise (1 euro per pack, 0.50 euros for generics, free medicines under 5 euros). There are also differences from Region to Region in terms of exemptions for sickness, income and disability. In this chaos, what can the citizen do? “First of all – replies Silvia Lo Iacono, head of the Health & Rights Observatory of the Mdc, which oversaw the dossier – you can find out if you can benefit from a particular exemption and, even in this case, one type could be better than another. Secondly, "to save as much as possible, the citizen can have a generic drug prescribed by the doctor corresponding to the branded one, which costs more and to whose price must be added, in most cases, the difference between the generic and the branded drug and then also the co-payment (as provided for by the resolutions in various regions)". Pharmacist33 – 17 November 2009 Year 5 No. 196
