Health insurance balance: Every third new drug is useless
We all use reflex to the well-known drugs that we know they help. And we should stay that way! As a study of the statutory health insurance shows, one third of all new drugs coming to the market are useless. For five years, all new drugs were examined for costs and benefits, reports the Funke media group, which has the interim balance of the statutory health insurance.
Only one third of all new drugs have added benefits
Health insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers have been conducting price negotiations since 2012 for 129 new drugs. But only 44 of them have a clearly demonstrable added value for the patient at all? So only every third drug coming onto the market. 41 other drugs had no added value compared to well-known drugs, the remaining third only for a part of the patients.
Savings are lower than hoped
Since 2011, the Federal Joint Committee, together with a well-founded institute for quality and efficiency, decides on all new medicines for their benefits and costs. The aim of the reform was to limit spending on new drugs by two billion euros a year. However, this goal has not quite worked out, because: The price negotiations of health insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers have saved only 2.5 billion euros.
Nevertheless, the negotiations are helpful in "separating the wheat from the chaff," according to Johann-Magnus von Stackelberg, Vice-Chancellor of the Central Association of Health Insurance Funds to the Spark media group.
