Unaffordable medications a major cost of living pressure in key marginal seats

One in three women in key electorates are struggling to pay for prescribed medications for themselves and their kids, making health care costs a major election issue.

Cost of living pressures are shaping up as a major issue in the coming election with new research revealing that large numbers of Australian women and families now struggle to pay for necessary medicines.

According to polling released Wednesday by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and conducted in a number of key marginal seats across the country, more than one in ten voters have gone without prescribed medications because they simply could not afford them, with women aged 35 to 54 the most likely to have gone without.

“This is a big cost of living issue for our patients and we are prepared to put resources into a public awareness campaign,” said Prof Trent Twomey, national president of the Pharmacy Guild.

President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia Trent Twomey says he’s witnessed the issue firsthand. Picture: Brendan Radke

“This is disproportionately affecting women. They know exactly what a loaf of bread, a litre of milk and a rapid antigen test costs. And they know that it all adds up fast,” Prof Twomey said.

“I see mothers in my pharmacy forced to choose which child gets the medicines prescribed by the doctor or not filling their own scripts because there’s nothing left in the budget.”

“These are Australia’s forgotten women”.

The group, which commissioned research into how affordable medication was for residents of key electorates including Lindsay, Macquarie, and Reid in the Sydney area and Central Coast seats Robertson and Dobell, found that on average 20 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 64 described prescription medication as “unaffordable”.

Women in particular struggled according to the survey with 38 per cent of female voters, including concession card holders, saying they had trouble affording medicines for themselves and their family.

One in five described medicines as “unaffordable”, and health care costs were particularly concerning to women. Picture: Getty Images

The survey also revealed that healthcare affordability was becoming a real pain point for household budgets and thus, potentially, the federal government.

More respondents to the survey said they were more immediately worried about paying for health care than they were housing affordability, stagnating wages, and the cost of raising a family.

Health care costs also trumped concerns about the federal deficit.

And, suggesting that the issue is being felt among the middle class, nearly one-third of voters surveyed with a household income up to $100,000 per year said that at some point in the past three years they had found it difficult to pay for prescribed medications.

The Guild’s findings echo other studies which have found that even PBS-listed medications are out of reach for some Australians.

In 2019-2020 the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 900,000 delayed or did not fill a script because of cost.

When quizzed about cost of living pressures last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that “our inflationary pressures in this country lower than what we’re seeing in other countries.”