Australia admits cyber defences 'inadequate' as medical hack hits millions

 France24 – AFP, 26 October 2022 

Hackers have accessed millions of medical records at Medibank, one of Australia's
largest private insurers SAEED KHAN AFP/File

Sydney (AFP) – Hackers accessed millions of medical records at one of Australia's largest private health insurers, the company said Wednesday, prompting the government to admit the nation's cyber safeguards were "inadequate". 

This was the latest in a series of hacks targeting millions of people that have brought Australian companies' lax approach to cyber security into sharp relief. 

Medibank chief executive David Koczkar said information about each of the company's 3.9 million policy holders -- some 15 percent of Australia's population -- had been compromised. 

"Our investigation has now established that this criminal has accessed all our private health insurance customers' personal data and significant amounts of their health claims data," he said in a statement to the Australian stock exchange. 

"This is a terrible crime. This is a crime designed to cause maximum harm to the most vulnerable members of our community." 

The cyber attack was revealed last week, but it was not known until now how many people were impacted. 

The hackers have previously threatened to leak the data, starting with 1,000 famous Australians, unless Medibank pays a ransom. 

Medibank on Wednesday also confirmed it was not insured against cyber attacks, estimating the hack could cost the company as much as Au$35 million (US$22 million). 

The Medibank hack followed an attack on telecom company Optus last month that exposed the personal information of some nine million Australians -- almost a third of the population. 

The Optus attack was one of the largest data breaches in Australian history. 

'Inadequate'

Australia's Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has previously accused companies of stockpiling sensitive customer data they did not need. 

Firms currently face paltry fines -- Au$2.2 million -- for failing to protect customer data. 

Dreyfus last week said these fines would be ratcheted up to Au$50 million. 

"Unfortunately, significant privacy breaches in recent weeks have shown existing safeguards are inadequate," he said. 

"It's not enough for a penalty for a major data breach to be seen as the cost of doing business." 

Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil on Tuesday said the fallout from the Medibank hack was "potentially irreparable". 

"One of the reasons why the government is so worried about this is because of the nature of the data," she told Australia's parliament. 

"When it comes to the personal health information of Australians, the damage here is potentially irreparable." 

O'Neil has previously described hacking as a "dog act" -- an Australian phrase reserved for something especially shameful or despicable.

Virtual reality: Dutch firm wins prize for gaming pain away

DutchNews, December 19, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

 A Frisian company which has developed a virtual reality headset to combat chronic pain has won the prestigious UN World SummitAward. 

Exactly how many people are suffering from chronic pain in the Netherlands is not known but their number runs into the thousands, medical experts say. Often the pain has no clear cause. The conventional treatment is painkillers but these are costly and don’t always work. 

The VR treatment tackles the pain by training the brain, psychologist Louis Zantema, who founded Reducept, told broadcaster NOS. 

‘People with chronic pain are oversensitive to the pain signal sent by the body to the brain. The therapy helps the nervous system because the brain believes healing is taking place,’ he said. 

Shooting down the pain 

‘When you put on the VR headset you travel into in your own nervous system. The painful spots show up as small red dots which you shoot at, as if you were playing a game,’ Zantema explained. 

After ‘shooting down’ the pain the next step is a mindfulness exercise focusing on the spinal cord. ‘There we are using a psychological trick which also works for people suffering from trauma. The patient does a complicated exercise which is alternated with an intensive focusing on the pain.’ 

Professor Harry van Goor tested the VR headset on 40 people all of whom experienced a reduction in pain symptoms. He says the treatment offers hope to many while saving money at the same time. 

‘Chronic pain is causing depression and is putting a lot of pressure on the health system. The medication either doesn’t help or is addictive and waiting lists for the specialist pain clinics are very long,’ he told NOS. 

The treatment is available at over 50 healthcare institutions but is not covered by health insurers. A session costs €15 apart from the cost of buying a VR headset.

Related Article:

Science & Spiritually Conference 2018, BC – Canada (4), June 16-17, 2018 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Text version “Predictions”)

“….Let me close with this: I'm going to give you the same concept that I gave those few on their way to the beautiful garden a few days ago [channelling on the way to Butchart Gardens in Vancouver Island]. There are things in your field for you that will save your life unless you look back and say, "Impossible!" Some of you have an old habit where you look at your life and say, "Well, for others, but not for me." Sometimes you pull on your old logic and further say, "Well, it's never happened before, so why should it happen now?" Dear ones, that exactly reflects the earlier teaching of the day. Don't let the past predict your future. If you do, then you are actually creating your own demise.

What is in the field for you? What is it you can see and imagine? Have you heard this question from the scientists this week - not a channeller, but the scientists? Did you hear that the visualization of your health from your consciousness goes inside and is seen by your own cellular structure? Does this science sound like Kryon? Did you hear that the field is there to push it forward? Do you believe in homeopathy? Do you see how it works? For example, you have a tincture that is too small to be recognized by any part of the body as a chemical change, yet the body sees the signal from the tincture and corrects the issue! Dear one, homeopathy is not something unknown on the planet. It's everywhere! So understand this: The principles of homeopathy are NOT homeopathic principles. They are Universal principles of the field.

So, how about consciousness homeopathy? What's the difference between putting a tincture together to create a signal for healing and life extension or putting strong consciousness together that does the same? This is here and already has been proven. It's just means changing the mechanics a little. With the new energy that I have told you is here, and the amount of love that is pouring to you that is greater than ever before because of what you're doing, old soul, this is doable for you. More than doable. It awaits manifestation. ..…”

Dutch minister warns big pharma to come clean on drugs prices

DutchNews, August 27, 2019 

Photo: Ministerie van VWS/ Phil Nijhuis

Health minister Bruno Bruins has warned the pharmaceuticals industry that he considers the way drugs firms are not more open about why their prices are so high to be ‘unacceptable’. 

In an open letter in the Volkskrant, the minister said society ‘cannot accept that healthcare costs mount up so much as to be unaffordable’. Hospital spending on expensive medicines rose 10% in 2017 and has now hit €2.2bn. Treatments which cost €100,000 a year are no longer the exception, the minister said. 

‘What bothers me is that we are not allowed to know why we have to pay so much,’ the minister said. ‘We get no explanation. No insight into the price calculation. And I consider that to be unacceptable.’ 

Elsewhere in the health service, providers, patients and managers work together to keep costs in check, but it is ‘extremely bitter’ that such an important player as the drugs industry does not take sufficient responsibility, the minister said. 

The minister said he planned to hold talks in the coming weeks with an unnamed pharmaceuticals company which had put up the price of a medicine to some €150,000 per patient per year. 

Taxpayers are funding expensive drug development, report says

Big pharma firms criticise Dutch plans to slash drug prices

Without a proper explanation, the minister said he would take ‘steps’ which could include going public. 

The minister said that while he valued pharmaceutical firms’ work, they should show that they are socially responsible ‘in their own interests’. One primarily Dutch investor has already said it will no longer invest in pharmaceuticals firms with unclear prices, the minister said, adding ‘will more follow?’. 

Insurance companies VGZ and ASN have recently made that decision, the Volkskrant said. 

Amcham 

In February, foreign pharmaceuticals companies in the Netherlands said they are ‘concerned’ that the government is undermining the business climate by trying to force down the price of drugs. 

The companies, including MSD, Gilead and Johnson & Johnson unit Janssen, are all members of Amcham, the American chamber of commerce in the Netherlands, which wrote to Bruins calling for a rethink. 

The organisation says Bruins is not sufficiently aware of the investment needed to develop new drugs and that the return on investment in the sector has now shrunk to 1.9%.

More people ask for help to quit smoking, insurers say

DutchNews, August 19, 2019 

The number of people requesting help to stop smoking has soared, with the biggest three health insurance companies all reporting a sharp rise, the AD said on Monday. 

Last year, 40,000 people asked VGZ, CZ or Menzis to fund a course or medication to try to quit, the paper said. In 2012, just 3,200 people made a similar request. 

Research by the Trimbos addiction centre also shows more people are asking for help. Last year, some 37% of smokers had a go at quitting smoking, up from 34% in 2014. 

The Netherlands still has 3.1 million smokers, of whom 465,000 smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day. Some 20% to 30% of attempts to stop smoking after a course are successful. 

Trimbos spokesman Marc Willemsen said he expects the number of people asking their insurance company to pay for a course will soar in 2020, when help to quit smoking will be excluded from the €385 own risk element. 

‘That cost is a serious obstacle to people who need serious help,’ he said. ‘They cannot afford it.’

Obamacare led to better cancer outcomes: studies

Yahoo – AFP, June 2, 2019

The findings come as the administration of President Donald Trump is renewing its 

efforts to strike down the Affordable Care Act signed into law by his predecessor 

Barack Obama (seen) (AFP Photo/Juan BARRETO)

The findings come as the administration of President Donald Trump is renewing its efforts to strike down the Affordable Care Act signed into law by his predecessor Barack Obama (seen) (AFP Photo/Juan BARRETO)

Chicago (AFP) - A pair of studies have found that Obamacare led to an increase in early-stage ovarian cancer detections and helped nearly erase racial differences in the timely treatment of a range of cancers.

The findings, which were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago, come as the administration of President Donald Trump is renewing its efforts to strike down the Affordable Care Act signed into law by his predecessor Barack Obama.

The study on ovarian cancer screening was led by Anna Jo Smith at the Johns Hopkins Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Baltimore.

"Having health insurance plays a major role in whether or not a woman has access to care providers who can monitor symptoms and act on those symptoms if necessary,"she said.

The five-year survival rate for women diagnosed with early-stage ovarian cancer is 75 percent, but the figure drops dramatically to 30 percent for those diagnosed at a later stage.

The ACA was signed into law on March 2010, and by 2016-17, some 12.7 million people were covered under the law.

The percentage of Americans who were uninsured dropped from 16 percent in 2010 to less than 12 percent by 2016.

The researchers used data from the National Cancer Database to look at the years before (2004-2009) and after (2011-2014) the passing of the ACA.

They looked at the stage of the diagnosis and the time to treatment for the 21 to 64 age group, and compared it to those 65 and older, which was used as a control group because they had access to publicly funded Medicare before and after.

They found that there was a relative gain of 1.7 percent in early-stage diagnosis and a 1.6 percent improvement in receiving treatment within 30 days.

The team wrote in a statement: "While a 1.7% difference in being diagnosed earlier may not sound very large, for the 22,000 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the United States annually, it means that close to 400 more women could be diagnosed at an early, treatable stage."

Racial differences erased

The second paper on Obamacare found that differences between whites and blacks in timely care "practically disappeared" following the passage of the law.

Two key provisions of the ACA were granting states permission to expand public funded Medicaid coverage to low-income citizens starting in 2014, and providing subsidies to those who could not afford to buy private insurance if they did not qualify for Medicaid.

The study looked at the records of 2.2 million people diagnosed with advanced cancers including non-small cell lung cancer, breast, urothelial, gastric and esophageal, colorectal, renal cell, prostate, and melanoma cancers.

"Prior to Medicaid expansion, African American patients were 4.8 percentage points less likely to receive timely treatment as compared with white patients," the researchers wrote.

After the ACA was passed, 6.1 percent more blacks received timely treatment as well as 2.1 percent of whites, making the differences between the races statistically insignificant.

"Many studies have described racial disparities that exist in cancer care, but few have shown what types of interventions improve health equity -- we now have evidence that Medicaid expansion can mitigate certain health disparities," said study author Amy J. Davidoff at the Yale School of Public Health.

Trump's Justice Department announced in March an abrupt escalation in the administration's push against Obamacare by siding with a Texas federal court ruling that declared the health care law unconstitutional.

That ruling is currently being appealed and the resulting impasse looks increasingly likely to end up in the Supreme Court -- putting a politically radioactive issue center stage as the country moves towards the 2020 presidential election.

Taxpayers are funding expensive drug development, report says

DutchNews, May 10, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The Dutch government invests tens of millions of euros every year in small biotech companies which are developing the expensive medicines ministers are trying to make cheaper, according to a new report. 

The government places no conditions on its loans and grants to biotech and pharma start-ups about the eventual prices they will charge for their drugs, the report, by multinational research groups Somo and Wemos said.

‘Pharmaceutical companies argue that the reason their drugs are so expensive is because research and development is expensive, but this is simply not true,’ said Somo researcher Esther de Haan.

‘Much of the cost of research and development is borne by unconditional public investment. Because of this, the government loses its chance to influence drug pricing.’ 

In addition to funding fundamental research conducted by universities, national and regional governments also invest heavily in start-up and spin-off biotech companies – companies founded by researchers wanting to commercially develop promising scientific findings. 

Large private investors usually move in later, when the medicine looks more promising and the risk to investors is therefore lower, the report points out. ‘These private investors then make a huge profit by selling their shares at a high price to other companies in the pharmaceutical industry,’ the report said. 

The researchers look at several case studies including Acerta’s development of Calquence, a cancer drug currently on sale in the US for $15,000 a month. The drug was developed with the help of both Dutch national and regional government funding. 

Health minister Bruno Bruins told the Volkskrant that the researchers ‘had a point’ and that he would discuss the findings with the economic affairs ministry, which runs most of the investment funds.

‘We should not be paying big prices for drugs which were partly developed with taxpayers’ money,’ the minister said. 

Campaign 

Bruins has criticised the pharmaceutical industry following two high profile cases involving soaring drug prices. In January, Bruins reacted angrily to a decision by Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis to put up the price of a drug to treat a rare form of cancer five fold, describing it as ‘outrageous‘. 

And in November, Amsterdam’s AMC teaching hospital was given the green light to make its own version of a licenced drug to treat a rare metabolic disorder. 

The hospital began making its own version of the drug after manufacturer Leadiant ramped up the price by around 500% to €200,000 per patient per year. 

The Dutch healthcare institute Zorginstituut Nederland has also said insurers should stop paying for expensive drugs if pharmaceutical companies continue to refuse to say how they arrive at the price.

Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva has vowed to defend itself after being accused of orchestrating price-fixing among drugmakers in a US antitrust lawsuit https://t.co/VGSZSsPCOw

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 11 mei 2019

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Israel drug giant Teva to slash 14,000 jobs globally

Amsterdam hospital gets €5m from lottery to make its own medicines

DutchNews, February 11, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Amsterdam’s UMC teaching hospital has been given a €5m donation by a lottery organisation to prepare more drugs in its own pharmacy and so produce them more cheaply and more quickly than the pharmaceuticals industry. 

The plan to make more drugs is part of a widercampaign by the hospital to improve the availability of medicines for rare diseases which will focus on sharing information and carrying out research into why some drugs are so expensive. 

‘We want to come up with concrete examples of the problems with expensive medicine in terms of price and availability,’ professor Carla Hollack, who is jointly leading the project, told the NRC. 

‘That may lead to friction with the pharmaceuticals industry but that is not our aim,’ she said. ‘It is about identifying and solving mistakes in the system.’ 

Last year the hospital was embroiled in a major row with the drugs industry when it began making its own version of a licenced drug to treat a rare metabolic disorder. 

The hospital began producing the drug, known as CDCA, because it was no longer covered by health insurance after manufacturer Leadiant ramped up the price by around 500%. 

Concerns 

Last week, foreign pharmaceuticals companies in the Netherlands said they are ‘concerned’ that the government is undermining the business climate by trying to force down the price of drugs. 

The companies, including MSD, Gilead and Johnson & Johnson unit Janssen, are all members of Amcham, the American chamber of commerce in the Netherlands, which wrote to health minister Bruno Bruins calling for a rethink.

In January, Bruins reacted angrily to a decision by Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis to put up the price of a drug to treat a rare form of cancer five fold, describing it as ‘outrageous‘. 

The Dutch healthcare institute Zorginstituut Nederland has also said insurers should stop paying for expensive drugs if pharmaceutical companies continue to refuse to say how they arrive at the price.

Related Article:

Big pharma firms criticise Dutch campaign to slash drug prices

Big pharma firms criticise Dutch campaign to slash drug prices

DutchNews, February 5, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Foreign pharmaceuticals companies in the Netherlands say they are ‘concerned’ that the government is undermining the business climate by trying to force down the price of drugs.

The companies, including MSD, Gilead and Johnson & Johnson unit Janssen, are all members of Amcham, the American chamber of commerce in the Netherlands, which has written to health minister Bruno Bruins calling for a rethink. 

The organisation says Bruins is not sufficiently aware of the investment needed to develop new drugs and that the return on investment in the sector has now shrunk to 1.9%. This, Amcham says, ‘is too low to ensure the sector remains attractive for investors’. 

Bruins has made strongly worded statements about the industry following two high profile cases involving soaring drug prices. 

In January, Bruins reacted angrily to a decision by Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis to put up the price of a drug to treat a rare form of cancer five fold, describing it as ‘outrageous‘. 

And in November, Amsterdam’s AMC teaching hospital was given the green light to make its own version of a licenced drug to treat a rare metabolic disorder. The hospital began making its own version of the drug after manufacturer Leadiant ramped up the price by around 500% to €200,000 per patient per year. 

Insurers 

The Dutch healthcare institute Zorginstituut Nederland has also said insurers should stop paying for expensive drugs if pharmaceutical companies continue to refuse to say how they arrive at the price. 

‘Asking companies to provide transparency about price setting on a product level doesn’t take into account that the primary goal of pharmaceutical companies is not to recoup R&D costs, but to invest today in the medicines of tomorrow,’ the Amcham statement says. 

In addition, the government strategy ‘would also send the wrong signal to other so-called “priority sectors” of the Dutch economy, which together produce more than a quarter of the Dutch GDP’ Amcham said. 

The Netherlands hopes to attract more pharmaceuticals firms to locate here following the successful bid to host the European Medicines Agency EMA, which has to leave London due to Brexit.

Related Article:

Amsterdam hospital gets €5m from lottery to make its own medicines - New

Minister to ‘talk to Novartis’ after five-fold cancer drug price hike

DutchNews, January 10, 2019 - By Robin Pascoe

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Health minister Bruno Bruins is planning to talk to Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis this week about the five-fold hike in the price of a drug to treat a rare form of cancer. 

Bruins told a television talk show on Wednesday evening that the decision to put up the price of a year’s supply to €90,000 is an ‘example of how not to behave’. ‘These are outrageous sums,’ Bruins said. ‘And I am not done with this yet.’ 

The drug, lutetium-octreotaat, was developed in the mid 1980s by researchers at Rotterdam’s Erasmus Medical Centre but the company which makes it is now owned by Novartis following a string of takeovers. 

Novartis then registered the drug as an orphan treatment with the European patent office, according to research by Dutch medical journal Nederlands Tijdschrift voorGeneeskunde. 

Bruins told the Jinek talk show that the EU rules on orphan drugs are meant to stimulate the development of new medicines and says he plans to raise this abuse of the system within Europe. 

‘This expensive medicine is covered in the basic health insurance package so patients will continue to be treated,’ he said. ‘But we are having to deal with so many other really expensive drugs that we really do have to tackle this.’ 

Several Dutch hospitals make their own version of lutetium-octreotaat at a cost of some €4,000 per drip. A full treatment session comprises four drips. Apple chief Steve Jobs was among the patients who were treated using the medicine in Rotterdam. 

Meeting

A spokeswoman for Novartis told DutchNews.nl that the company is ‘willing to discusses this topic with all stakeholders including the government’. 

The company said the until its approval by the European Medicines Agency, the drug, formally known as Lutathera, ‘was only available as an experimental treatment at centers with the facilities and capabilities to manage the compounding of a radioactive product.’ 

The drug has now undergone major clinical trials and is available as a targeted therapy to patients in Europe and the US, Novartis said. 

After its approval in 2018, ‘the price of Lutathera was carefully considered and based on the relative benefit it provides to patients’, the company said. 

Price

Last year, the Dutch healthcare institute Zorginstituut Nederland said insurers should stop paying for expensive drugs if pharmaceutical companies continue to refuse to say how they arrive at the price.

And in November, Amsterdam’s AMC teaching hospital was given the green light by health ministry inspectors to make its own version of a licenced drug to treat a rare metabolic disorder. 

The hospital began making its own version of the drug after manufacturer Leadiant ramped up the price by around 500% to €200,000 per patient per year. 

The drug has been available since the 1970s but Leadiant only registered it as an orphan medicine with the European medicines agency in 2017. 

Orphan status, given to drugs which are used to treat very specific and rare illnesses, means a drug cannot be copied commercially for a 10-year period.

Related Article:

Dutch hospital can make cheaper version of drug, health inspector say

Dutch hospital can make cheaper version of drug, health inspector say

DutchNews, November 28, 2018

Photo: DutchNews.nl 

Amsterdam’s AMC teaching hospital can make its own version of a licenced drug to treat a rare metabolic disorder but must adapt its production methods, health ministry inspectors said on Wednesday. 

The inspectors were responding to a complaint by by Italian pharmaceuticals company Leadiant, which produces the drug henodeoxycholic acid or CDCA, used to treat a rare metabolic disorder.

The hospital began making its own version of the drug in April because it was no longer covered by health insurance after the price shot up. That month Leadiant ramped up the price by around 500% so it now costs some €200,000 per patient per year. 

The hospital said at the time it could produce the drug for €25,000. 

In August the hospital was ordered to recall the drug by health inspectors because of fears the raw materials might contain impurities, a worry which turned out to be true. 

However, rather than ban the hospital from picking up production again, the inspectorate has said it can continue, if it changes the production process. It must also stop ‘advertising’ the drug – by promoting it to other patients via the media, a second complaint submitted by Leadiant. 

Hospital pharmacies make their own medicines more often but this case is unusual because of the financial considerations. The hospital is offering ‘a social and economically-responsible alternative to a registered medicine which is so expensive that it is inaccessible to patients,’ the AMC said in April. 

Just 60 patients in the Netherlands suffer from the disease CTX which the drug is used to treat.

India launches 'Modicare', world's biggest health scheme

Yahoo – AFP, September 23, 2018

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the world's largest health insurance
scheme, promising free coverage for half a billion of India's poorest citizens (AFP
Photo/PRAKASH SINGH)

New Delhi (AFP) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday launched the world's biggest health insurance scheme, promising free coverage for half a billion of India's poorest citizens ahead of national elections next year.

The bottom 40 percent of India's 1.25 billion people will be covered under the flagship program, dubbed "Modicare", unveiled in the federal budget earlier this year.

The 100 million lowest-income families will be provided 500,000 rupees ($6,900) -- a sizeable sum in India -- in annual health insurance to treat serious ailments.

Modi handed medical cards out at the launch in Ranchi, capital of the eastern state of Jharkhand, calling it a historic day for India.

"We want to strengthen the hands of the poor and stand shoulder to shoulder with them in pursuit of good health," he posted on Twitter.

The scheme is expected to cost the central and 29 state governments $1.6 billion per year in total. Funding will be increased gradually according to demand.

India's overburdened public health system is plagued by a shortage of facilities and doctors and most people use private clinics and hospitals if they can afford to.

But a private consultation can cost 1,000 rupees ($15), a huge sum for millions living on less than $2 a day.

More than 60 percent of the average family's spending goes on medicines and healthcare, the government estimates.

Many of the poorest just go without care.

A report published this month by The Lancet medical journal found substandard healthcare was responsible for an estimated 1.6 million deaths a year in India -- the highest anywhere in the world.

"A scam"

Critics have questioned how the government plans to fund such an enormous safety net, and suggested it was little more than a sop ahead of elections next May.

Modi will be seeking a second term on a platform of pro-poor policies and "Modicare" is a key plank of his pitch to low-income Indians.

"This is going to be another scam. It will benefit only private insurance companies. The citizen of the country will realise later that it is nothing but an election gimmick," said Sanjay Nirupam from India's main opposition Congress Party.

But K. K. Aggarwal, a cardiologist and former president of the Indian Medical Association, said "politicking over the scheme should stop".

"It has been launched, and it is going to be a game changer," he told AFP.

Some healthcare providers have raised concerns about being left out of pocket, fearing the government has underestimated the cost of certain treatments.

Prathap Reddy, chairman of private hospital chain Apollo Hospitals, said the private sector was "rightly worried" about pricing and reimbursements.

"While we all work together to ensure the success of this scheme, there are areas that need focus and fine tuning," he said.

Others say it should have included primary day-to-day healthcare instead of just secondary and tertiary care for more serious and long term treatment.

"Modicare does not extend to primary healthcare, which, we believe, is the weakest link in the provision of public health in India," Rajiv Lall and Vivek Dehejia of the IDFC Institute think-tank said in a column for the Mint newspaper.

Health insurer takes pharma giant to court for ‘evergreening’

DutchNews, September 20, 2018

Photo: DutchNews.nl

Health insurance group Menzis is taking legal action against Astra Zeneca, accusing the pharmaceuticals firm of ‘dragging out’ patents to make it pay too much for drugs. 

Menzis wants €4m in compensation for its clients, whom, it says, paid too much for a drug named Seroquel. The case will be heard by judges in The Hague on Friday. 

Seroquel is a drug which helps people who suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorders. The patent on one variety expired in 2012 but Menzis says Astra Zeneca prolonged it until 2014 by a process known as ‘evergreening‘. 

Once the patent expired, the price of the drug plunged 90% as other generic drugs firms began making their versions.

‘It is the first time that a health insurance has taken a drugs company to court for this kind of thing,’ Henk Eleveld, a pharmacist who advises Menzis, said in a statement. 

‘We are taking this step because of ethics. Pharmaceuticals companies keep the price of medicine artificially high and it is people who pay for health insurance who pick up the bill.’

Basic health policy to include more options to promote a healthy lifestyle

DutchNews, June 1, 2018

Junk food has gone up less in price than fruit and veg. Photo: Depositphotos.com

The basic health insurance policy is to be expanded to cover expert advice to help people develop a healthy lifestyle, health minister Bruno Bruins said on Friday.

‘The idea is that we can help someone who has diabetes, not by giving them insulin but by encouraging them to live more healthily,’ the minister said. 

Practitioners who specialise in ‘combined lifestyle interventions’ or GLI – as the health ministry puts it – will be able to bill health insurers for their work from next January. GLI involves combating obesity by encouraging patients to eat less and take more exercise along with psychological help. 

Some options will also be removed from the basic package, such as strong paracetamol pills of 1,000 milligrams, which are only available on prescription. Over the counter vitamin and mineral preparations will also no longer be paid for. 

The government is responsible for deciding what the basic health insurance package should include and insurance companies are supposed to compete on price. They are also free to decide what to include in supplementary policies.

Health insurers track website visitors, pass information to Facebook

DutchNews, April 12, 2018

Health insurance companies Menzis and ONVZ say they have immediately removed a plug-in from their websites which fed information on visitor behaviour back to Facebook.

An investigation by broadcaster NOS found that 18 of the 40 health insurance company websites it studied contained the Facebook tracking pixel, with 11 placing it on pages showing medical information. 

The social media platform uses the information provided by the tracking pixel to show people tailor-made adverts on their Facebook pages, if they are logged in at the time.

This means, for example, that Menzis can place an advert for its services on the Facebook page of someone who has visited their website and could be a potential client. 

The tracker cannot trace confidential medical information but would tell Facebook if a person had visited a part of the health insurance company website covering sexually transmitted diseases, for example. 

Privacy

Patient lobby group Patientenfederatie Nederland told NOS it wants the practice to stop. ‘Do yourself and your patients a favour and don’t pass on this information,’ spokesman Thom Meens told NOS. 

Privacy lobby group Bits of Freedom said it is surprised by the health insurers. ‘We’ve had these sort of scandals before and I thought websites would have improved,’ director Hans de Zwart said. Deliberately placing pixels in websites is either ‘incompetence or shameless,’ he said. 

The use of tracking pixels is not illegal if visitors to the website have agreed to the terms of use and cookie policy. 

Many websites, such as webshops, use tracking pixels so they can offer visitors special deals or draw their attention to specific offers which fit their interests.