Associate Professor Susan Hurley
Consultant to the VicHealth Centre for Tobacco Control

The potential for tobacco control to reduce cost pressures on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme

Government spending on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), which subsidises selected pharmaceuticals, has become the fastest growing component of the Commonwealth's health care budget. PBS spending has more than doubled as a percentage of GDP in the last 10 years, and in the next 40 years, PBS spending is predicted to increase more than five-fold, to 3.4% of GDP.

The Commonwealth has flagged its desire to stem this dramatic spending growth, but its strategy to increase patient co-payments proved unpopular and difficult to implement. An alternative strategy, that would also improve health outcomes, is increased tobacco control activities. Cardiovascular disease is the biggest contributor to health care costs in Australia, and around 17% of disease is attributable to tobacco use. In this paper we will report our analysis of the potential impact of a 5% reduction in smoking prevalence on PBS subsidies for drugs used to treat cardiovascular disease.

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