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BNHI denies curb on new drugs

A Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) official yesterday denied claims the bureau was planning to impose major constraints on payments for new drugs in an attempt to reduce costs.

Huang Chao-ming (黃肇明), chief of medication and pharmaceutical policy, said that the bureau discussed this issue with members of the pharmaceutical sector on June 28 but no concrete results were reached. He said the matter hadn't even been recorded in the minutes of the meeting.

Huang made the denial in response to a claim by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Teh-fu (林德福) yesterday that the government was carrying out a "two-handed" scheme -- planning to restrict payment for new drugs while Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) has backed a bill encouraging the development of biotechnology and new drugs.

Lin held a news conference yesterday to make public the minutes of a recent bureau meeting at the bureau. Huang was quoted as saying in the meeting that "until the National Health Insurance balance sheet has been improved, the bureau will not pay for any new drugs, except for medications for cancers and rare diseases."

Chang recently said he would support a draft bill encouraging the development of the biotechnology industry and new bio-medications -- a bill promoted by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) -- was passed into law as soon as possible.

Several days ago, Academia Sinica researcher Hsieh Chee-ruey (謝啟瑞), who specializes in health economics, voiced opposition the bureau's plans to restrict payments for new drugs.

Hsieh was quoted as saying on July 5 his own and foreign research results proved that new drugs help prolong people's lives and consequently help raise a country's productivity.

Hsieh said restricting payments for new drugs would drag Taiwan's overall productivity down in the long run while contributing little to improving the national health insurance program's finances.
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