Chair of the Green League, Ville Niinistö has slammed the government for its plans to diminish support for medicine costs by 150 million euros. Niinistö spoke at his party's municipal gathering in Vantaa on Saturday, saying that such measures would hit pensioners with health problems the hardest.
Instead Niinistö suggests that Finnish pharmacies be opened up to market competition. This way officials would no longer need to decide how many pharmacies should be operated in individual areas, and people could more easily become pharmacists.
"Figures show that Finnish pharmacists rake in earnings of 90-100 million euros. This is directly linked to the regulation of the price of medicine," Niinistö said.
"Allowing for competition and moving to medicine price ceilings could drop drug prices in Finland. That means that pharmacies would compete in terms of price, quality and location," he went on.
The government has had pharmacy market competition on its agenda from the beginning. So far the new Minister of Social Affairs and Health, Pirkko Mattila has made no comment on the issue.
