Budget to slash prices of medicine

As a result of one of the most comprehensive pre-Budget leaks ever, News Corp can also reveal:

• The Medicare rebate for bulk-billed GP visits will rise for concession patients from July this year and from July 2018 for general patients.

• The price of two of the most expensive medicines on the drug subsidy scheme will be slashed by 25 per cent.

• Chemists will get taxpayer funding to compensate them for low prescription volumes and $600 million for in-pharmacy diabetes checks.

• Pharmaceutical companies will suffer major price cuts for hundreds of their medicines.

• A 2014 plan to raise the price of prescription drugs by $5 is expected to be abandoned.

Health Minister Greg Hunt is about to introduce changes that will see prescription software altered so that the cheaper generic version of a medicine is prescribed by default.

Patients who use the cholesterol-lowering medicine Lipitor or antidepressant Zoloft for example will be automatically prescribed a generic version.

Doctors who want to prescribe the more expensive brand name drug will have to navigate a more complex system to generate it. The change may upset some elderly patients who will find the colour and the name of the medicines they take will change and there is a risk it could cause confusion and medication mix-ups.

Despite the fact that generic medicines are cheaper, just as effective and could save the health system billions of dollars only six in 10 patients use them.

The Government hopes to increase usage to 80 per cent under the changes.