Today I have a few updates about drug coverage in some English-speaking countries:

• For more than a year in Australia, the government’s Pharmeceutical Benefits Scheme has been charging low-income patients $5.30 for treatment with direct-acting antivirals. Other Austrailians pay only $37.80 for a treatment. A family physician or nurse practitioner can prescribe the drugs in consultation with a gastroenterologist or hepatologist specialized in chronic hepatitis C infection.
• Residents of the United Kingdom await better coverage of drug costs for hepatitis C. Last year the National Health Service limited its coverage of the hep C miracle cures to 10,000 patients per year, whereas 160,000 people in the UK were infected with hepatitis C. A spokesman for the NHS said, “As prices come down we hope in future years to be able to expand treatments even further. . .”
• Canada, where each province runs its own drug plan, has been seeing better coverage for hepatitis C antivirals. British Columbia, for example, has announced that treatment for everyone with hepatitis C, no matter their degree of liver damage, will be covered by its Fair PharmaCare plan starting in 2018. Under the plan, patients pay a deductable, depending on their income. After paying the deductible, they pay 30 percent of drug costs to a maximum amount. At that point the plan pays everything. For example, a hepatitis C patient with a family income of $50,000 a year would pay a total $1,650, including the deductible and 30 percent payment. The plan would pay everything after that.
• In the United States, drug plans and Medicaid may not cover hep C treatment for all levels of fibrosis. The big worry there recently has been the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the Senate’s proposed replacement, which could allow States to alter their rules so that pre-existing conditions may preclude coverage. Hepatitis C can hide in the system for decades, until it emerges as a pre-existing condition.

Blog readers, please let me know the news from your location.