Translated material
Zurabov will be saved by the dying
Terminally ill patients will be removed from the DLO system
For the sickest beneficiaries who are constantly in need of expensive medicines, a special drug supply program will be created. State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov announced this yesterday immediately after the end of the meeting with the Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov.The minister visited the deputies for the first time in the last four months. Perhaps it was precisely the lack of simple human communication that prevented the minister’s true intentions from being conveyed to legislators earlier. As soon as Mr. Zurabov met the speaker face to face, they immediately became like-minded people. In any case, with regard to ways out of the drug crisis . Boris Gryzlov said that he sees a way out of the situation surrounding additional drug provision (ADS) in separating citizens with several particularly “expensive” diagnoses into a separate program. As the head of the Ministry of Health and Social Development has repeatedly said before, only this measure will return the program to balance.
The new program for beneficiaries, for whom only the state can pay, will most likely include citizens with four types of diseases: diabetes mellitus, hemophilia, multiple sclerosis and oncohematology. According to Boris Gryzlov, there are about 300 thousand such people in the country. Against the backdrop of 14 million people entitled to free medicines (this year only 9 million of them remained in the program, the rest chose cash reimbursement for benefits), 300 thousand seems relatively small. In practice, not to mention the specific human lives that need to be saved, more than half of the DLO program budget in 2006 was spent on them. Which is understandable, given the cost of medications, for example, for cancer patients. Thus, the drug "Velcade" from Janssen Cilag - one of the most expensive drugs in the DLO program - in Moscow pharmacies costs from 56.5 thousand rubles. for one injection, and a minimum of 32 such syringes are required per year. In remote regions, the price of this drug can reach up to 3-4 thousand dollars.
According to the Pharmexpert Center for Marketing Research, $217 million was spent on insulins alone last year (in reimbursement prices), blood factors - they are necessary for patients with hemophilia - cost $200 million, and hemo-oncological drugs - $500 million The total amount of funding for DLO last year was approximately $2.5 billion.
Considering that relatively healthy beneficiaries prefer to take money and leave the program, it is becoming increasingly difficult to pay for medications for seriously ill people from the DLO budget. By and large, DLO and monetization are incompatible things. “It’s high time to cancel this St. George’s Day,” David Melik-Guseinov, a leading analyst at Pharmexpert, told Vremya Novostei. “That’s what we call the moment that repeats at the end of every year when beneficiaries decide what they need more: money or medicine.”
According to the expert, the new procedure will undoubtedly make it possible to set quotas for the prescription of expensive drugs, since all beneficiaries with the mentioned serious diagnoses will be personally taken into account, and the drugs prescribed to them will automatically be verified with treatment standards. Of course, if they do appear in our country. The relevant law will reduce the risks of DLO, but will not eliminate it completely.
Yesterday, Mr. Gryzlov was so imbued with the problem of citizens' health that he promised to begin preparing the bill right from next week, without delay. Another pressing problem—DLO debts for the past year—is also supposed to be resolved “at the level of law.” That is, simply allocate the missing 15-20 billion rubles. from the budget and close the issue.
But even against such a benign background, it is too early to say that the deputies have forgiven Minister Zurabov. Let us remember that last week they threatened him with resignation. Speaking about the current prospects for removing the minister from office, the State Duma speaker noted: “Deputies may have such a question.” And the question is still arising. Yesterday, the chairman of the Duma anti-corruption commission, Mikhail Grishankov, said: “Zurabov bears personal responsibility for what is happening.” On Friday, when Mr. Zurabov will speak at the government hour in the Duma, the deputy is preparing to recall all the mistakes of the ministry in recent years. And he is not alone, it is obvious that the issue of the minister’s resignation is purely political and will be decided at the level of the presidential administration. and not in parliament.