Can we all agree that the starting point in assessing the Health Technology Assessment Review options is that there is no place in Australia for any approach close to New Zealand's patient-hating Pharmac?
The industry has consistently described this review as a 'once-in-a-generation' opportunity.
They are correct, but not in the way they think.
They appear to have missed the part about it being a once-in-a-generation opportunity for decision-makers to progress and even bring forward many long-held ambitions. These ambitions have been on the public record for the last 15 years.
The industry's enthusiastic public support for the options paper is like a gift to these decision-makers.
No need for staged incremental changes to cautiously move Australia's oldest public health program towards a particular direction. We have a single industry-supported process that proposes enabling the adoption of a raft of changes that undermine value, centralise power, and move Australia towards a more parsimonious approach to funding health technologies.
This review is undoubtedly an enabler, but not for faster-funded access to health technologies, and it is very hard to see how patients do not lose and ultimately suffer. Was that the goal?
The industry's leaders cannot complain about this publication's reporting of the review and its options paper, given the repeated public warnings for the past two and half years.
The reporting has been consistent, and accurate.
We wanted to be wrong. This want to be incorrect has now evolved into sadness that some in the industry appear reluctant to acknowledge the failings and recognise the urgent need to publicly pivot to an alternative plan that aims to dull the worst aspects of an options paper that would make the founders of Pharmac proud.
Importantly, if you cannot see the deeply problematic inclusions in this options paper, please remove yourself from the process.
Can we at least agree that adopting anything close to Pharmac is entirely unacceptable?
That must be the starting point.
Can we agree that Australia does not want a price-obsessed system where centralised power in an unaccountable body increasingly disconnected from political decision-making explicitly prioritises its financial interests over patients? Can we agree that Australians seeking refuge in other health systems would be repugnant? Can we agree that any organisational culture celebrating the belittling of patients is repellent to our shared commitment to public health?
If so, can those in any position of influence or power please review the options paper from the sensible perspective of how it would enable progress towards these outcomes? Can we start with that? Stop reading the inclusions you like and believing that less appealing options can be magically set aside.
Time is of the essence.
In April 2022, having welcomed the former health minister's appointment of Dr Peter Boxall AO as the initial chair of the HTA Review reference committee on the day the federal election was announced, Medicines Australia took four weeks to change its mind.
It conducted an extensive internal process to determine what a basic Google search could have revealed in five minutes. It does not have four weeks to reach a sensible position on the HTA Review options paper and patients are counting on a sense of urgency.
Failing to stand up now, and that means more than engaging in the formal consultation process, means failing to stand up for patients.
