Kostenlose verschreibungspflichtige Medikamente für Senioren senken in Polen katastrophale Ausgaben um 62 %. Im Jahr 2016 wurde die „Drugs 75+“-Richtlinie eingeführt, die für Personen ab 75 Jahren die Selbstbeteiligung an der Liste der verschreibungspflichtigen Medikamente eliminiert. Durch die Richtlinie wurde das Risiko extremer Selbstbeteiligungskosten erheblich reduziert.

**Free Prescription Drugs for Seniors Cut Catastrophic Spending by 62% in Poland**

**The new study evaluates Poland’s “Drugs 75+” policy, introduced in September 2016, which eliminated out-of-pocket costs for a defined list of prescription medications for individuals aged 75 and older.** Unlike broader insurance expansions, the reform targeted only prescription drugs, leaving all other aspects of health coverage unchanged. Using nationally representative household expenditure data from 2015 to 2018 and a sharp age-based eligibility cutoff at 75, researchers employed a difference-in-discontinuities design to isolate the causal effects of the policy.

The most pronounced impact was on financial risk protection. The probability of catastrophic drug spending dropped by 9.8 percentage points at age 75, a 62% reduction relative to the prepolicy rate of 16%. The authors note that this compression of the spending distribution suggests **the policy functioned as insurance against large health shocks, substantially reducing exposure to extreme out-of-pocket costs.**

For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.70083