David Seymour: Associate Health Minister on the Government putting $604 million into Pharmac

David Seymour says drug-purchasing agency Pharmac must be on its game, with a $604 million funding boost over four years.

The Government has announced it'll fund up to 26 cancer medications and 28 other treatments, as a pre-commitment against Budget 2025.

The Associate Health Minister says there's very few things he's in favour of spending more money on - but medicine is one of them.

"If you look at the amount of Government spending that goes on medicine - New Zealand is not just a bit below average, we're way behind the pack."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good afternoon. We've finally got the government announcement on the
thirteen cancer drugs. As expected, the government's pumping six hundred
and four million dollars extra into Farmac. They say Farmac
will buy up to fifty four medicines. Now, that includes
seven from the thirteen that the National Party had promised.
The remaining six will be similar or better. Farm AC
Minister David Sema was with me. Now, hey, David, hey, ever,

(00:22):
how do you know Farmak's going to buy the seven
drugs plus the six similar ones?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well, strictly spinking, we don't. What they've done is given
us an indication of what would be possible for an
amount of money that we're giving them. It is possible
that as new medicines emerged, as they negotiate better prices
on existing medicines, that they will actually end up funding
things better than what is currently proposed. But certainly they've

(00:51):
indicated that with the money that we're giving them on
behalf of the text, parer might ad that that's what's possible.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Have they bumped these drugs up like a higher priority
than they actually should be, or have they said in
order to get to them where they are on the
priority list, This is how much money we need.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
I can be very clear, there's no question that pharmac
is in any way changing its operation. It remains completely independent.
It has its options for an investment list. The closest
that we've come to even anywhere near that independence is saying, look,
I pathetically, if you were to receive this much money,
how many pharmaceuticals could you fund and would it include

(01:31):
this one? And without giving any more detail, they've said, look,
you know, if you want to fund us this much more,
this is how many more medicines we'd be able to fund,
and this is how many of those particular ones you're
interested and might be included. But ultimately the decision is
entirely up to them.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
David, you are a guy who has made a political
career out of being disciplined with spending. How do you
feel about taking this money out of next year's budget?
As I putting on the credit, There's.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Very few things that I am in favor of spending
more money on, but medicines are absolutely one of them.
If you look at the amounts of the economy, if
you look at the amount of health budget, if you
look at the amounts of government spending, that goes on medicines.
New Zealand is not just a bit below average where

(02:22):
way behind the pack. There are too many lists of
developed countries where New Zealand is not even in the pack,
kind of straddling along at the back. And what that
metaphor means in reality is people who have some sort
of illness. That cancer is one that is high profile,
but far from the only illness that people have, and

(02:43):
they can only think that had they been born in
a different country, that they would have been able to
get a medicine that would make a dramatic difference to
their life, perhaps saved their life. I've had constituents as
a local MP. One that will always stay with me,
a woman with multiple cleurosis. She had to wait until
her condition to teriorated before the medicine would be funded

(03:07):
in New Sound. As it turned out, she was an
Australian citizen, so she was able to get the medicine
and continue living a good life. That's the difference. And
there's a million examples like that particular one of people
that have ended up having much worse lives because New
Zealand doesn't fund what others do. And we can actually
and I just make one final point. I know I'm

(03:28):
going on, but I believe that in time we will
demonstrate the savings to the rest of the health system
and to the tax system and the wealthier system, because
medicines actually allow people to stay out of hospital, stay
off the doll and at work where they're actually contributing
to the taxpayer's coffers as well as obviously having good

(03:50):
lives themselves.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, it's a fair point to make, David, Thank you
very much, David Seymore farm Ac Minister. For more from
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