The 'Dispatched' Podcast

An update on the Government's travel policy! The opportunity of AI, our own journeys, and why it needs to be embraced and not feared, particularly in healthcare. Productivity and the impact of chronic conditions and another example of why it would be better to target support to those most in need.

Government travel policies make us laugh and laugh. Understanding reforms from the government's perspective is critical to understand how they will evolve over time, and an update that raises more questions than it answers.

A special episode focused on the AbbVie-commissioned survey, revealing firm support for increased investment in medicines and the true extent of patients paying the cost of their prescriptions. What does it mean and what is the opportunity?

Another order on pharmaceutical pricing, but what does it mean? What does the Government's productivity roundtable have in common with the HTA Review? Screening programs that aren't, and a co-payment reduction that puts the safety net further out of reach.

A sense of entitlement that needs to be questioned, Australia is on the list of nine countries to be targeted over pharmaceutical pricing, and the hopeless hypocrisy of allowing a group of disreputable regimes to have a say on this country's response to a pandemic, while fulminating about the US on the PBS.

The opportunity for Australia is to do less deflecting on healthcare affordability and engage in an honest discussion about the genuine challenges confronting many Australians. The debate does not just deflect on affordability.

The ongoing debate regarding the US, the Trump administration's potential tariffs on pharmaceuticals and the PBS is mainly characterised by falsehoods and errors. We discuss our incredible frustration over a debate that is almost entirely disconnected from facts, including the apparent belief that Australia has a vast array of advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. We also have praise for the Prime Minister following his statements at a media conference today.

We have more health commissioners, including for genomics, and we both hope for a more meaningful discussion on weight loss therapies, the opportunities, access barriers, and their system-changing impact. Telehealth is here to stay, particularly in specific therapeutic areas, while one state has introduced political donations reform that could have a broader impact.

The health department has released its incoming ministerial brief to the reappointed Mark Butler, revealing internal government discussions over the future funding of new PBS listings, and hinting at limiting the implementation of the HTA Review recommendations to a small number of technologies. It also contradicts the claim that new PBS listings take 466 days from TGA registration, suggesting that it actually takes almost 650 days.

In a country as wealthy as Australia, how is it fair or equitable that some can pay for new treatments, while most are forced to wait, while the government uses a laborious multi-year process to negotiate the best deal for itself? We are forced to live with a system that regularly treats human health like a failing business. Are we worth saving? We also live with a system whose underpinning framework is often considered inviolable and virtually unimpeachable.