Member for Dobell and Assistant Health Minister Emma McBride has welcomed the news that the cost of PBS prescriptions is to be frozen until the end of the year.
Maximum PBS co-payments will remain at their current rate of $31.60 for general prescriptions until the end of 2025, and at $7.70 until the end of 2029 for concession cardholders.
PBS co-payments usually increase with indexation on January 1 in line with the Consumer Price Index.
The freeze on indexation of PBS co-payments is estimated to save Australians almost half a billion dollars.
This follows the largest cut to the price of medicines in PBS history in January 2023, the reduction of the Safety Net threshold by 25 per cent in July 2022 and the introduction of 60-day prescriptions, saving millions of Australians time and money.
McBride, who was the Chief Pharmacist at Wyong Hospital for nearly a decade before entering Parliament in 2016, said she had often seen people forced to delay or avoid filling prescriptions because of costs.
“I’m proud that our Labor Government made the largest ever cut to the cost of PBS medicines by reducing the general patient co-payment by $12.50 in 2023,” she said.
“Now, for the first time in decades, we’ve frozen the cost of PBS medicines at $31.60 for all patients and $7.70 for concession card holders.
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