Australia

Update: The senate has voted down the attempt by the Coalition to block the changes, so it will go ahead as planned.

Although the Coalition is apparently continuing to push this farce:

McKenzie immediately announced that the Coalition had lodged “another disallowance” motion that could see the measure put to a vote in the week of 4 September.

This shit just pissed me off.

It's really hard for me to go to the pharmacy due to chronic pain and just getting there in general. So being able to dispense two at a time would be helpful as.

Liberals are absolute scum.

Coalition talk a big game about "small government" but actually they're a huge overweight slob that exists only to separate you from your money and give it to businesses.

I'm actually sympathetic to rural pharmacies having increased financial viability issues (although the Rural Pharmacy Maintenance Allowance will apparently be doubled in the next budget), but the Pharmacy Guild I think has run a misleading campaign, such as referring to widespread shortages. The Pharmacy Guild has a lot of power in this country, but I'm glad most people seem to support increased dispensing.

why does lobbying always sound like blatant corruption? Lobbyist asks politician for help on something, lobbyist isn't getting it for free, they are either calling a favor (corrupt), paying for it (corrupt) and appealing to the politicians good will (lol)

For lucky people like me who won't be affected at all by this, here's a couple of quick links to explain what's going on:

Health Dept. explaination of what they are changing
Good write-up from ABC about the impact and explaining why pharmacy guild is mad

The short version:

At the moment, you can only get a one-month supply of medicines at a time. The Government is adjusting this for a bit over 300 medicines prescribed for chronic, long-term patients. They'll be able to get two months' supply.

• This saves these people with some long-term medical issues from having to go to the pharmacy all the time to fill their scripts.
• The pharmacy guild doesn't like it, because they like people coming into their stores all the time. They get paid to dispense medicine and like selling you other stuff while they have you in-store.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Coalition has asked the Senate to tear up changes allowing patients to buy two months of medicine for the price of one unless Labor pauses the policy and blunts the impact on pharmacies.

On Wednesday the shadow health minister, Anne Ruston, and Nationals Senate leader, Bridget McKenzie, announced that if the Albanese government did not pause the 60-day dispensing policy they would seek to have it disallowed.

The health minister, Mark Butler, immediately stared down the threat, suggesting the issue should be resolved within 24 hours because patients had already missed out on hundreds of millions in savings.

In in-store campaign material, pharmacists have claimed the policy has contributed to medicine shortages and urged patients to blame the prime minister, Anthony Albanese.

But with the Greens opposed, the Coalition would need to win support from David Pocock, both Jacqui Lambie Network senators and independent Lidia Thorpe to overturn the policy.

“There are legitimate concerns that Labor’s approach to 60-day dispensing could see community pharmacies close down and result in vulnerable Australians paying more for their healthcare,” Ruston said.

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