EURO PRICE CONTROLS INSUFFICIENT, SAYS US GAO

In a newly-released report, the US General Accounting Office says that the price controls by four European countries (France, Germany, Sweden and the UK) have been insufficient to control drug spending without the addition of other policies to control drug use. The GAO compiled this report, entitled Prescription Drugs: Spending Controls in Four European Countries, at the request of US Senate Aging Committee chairman Senator David Pryor last December.

The report points out that rises in drug spending "were greater for countries with direct price controls than for those with more indirect approaches," and notes that in France the average annual drug spending increase between 1995 and 1990 was 4.7%, compared with 4.5% in Sweden, 3.9% in Germany, 3.5% in the UK and 4.7% in the USA.

While admitting that these increases do not "necessarily imply that controls were ineffective at restraining pharmaceutical spending," the GAO suggests that "these policies may have kept drug expenditures from rising higher than they would have otherwise."