State guarantee for financing medical expenses in Denmark

How the regions should handle the rising costs of medicine was a central theme at the Danish Regions' summit last week, where it was agreed to work for the re-introduction of a state guarantee scheme to finance medicine subsidies. This is a proposal that the Danish Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Lif) has worked for and supports.

"We hear that among the regional politicians there is a very constructive approach to the use of effective medicines that can help a lot of patients, and everywhere we also encounter a very sober assessment that unforeseen expenses for medicine subsidies in individual years should be financed by the state, as it otherwise challenges the regions' opportunities to work with other initiatives in the healthcare system," says Ida Sofie Jensen, chief executive of the Lif.

Among other things, the chairman of Danish Regions, Anders Kühnau, called the increase in the costs of subsidized medicine skyrocketing. "These are expenses that the regions have to cover within their financial framework - and this removes the boost to the healthcare system that the government had otherwise allocated money for. Neither we nor the government can be satisfied with that. This means savings at the hospitals - and it cannot fail to have an impact on how quickly we can reduce waiting times."