Labour vows to bring back universal free prescriptions if elected

Labour is promising to reinstate universal free prescriptions if it wins the November election, adding it to the list of promises to be funded by a Capital Gains Tax.

Leader Chris Hipkins announced the policy on Thursday afternoon at a pharmacy in his Remutaka electorate in Upper Hutt.

The free prescriptions would apply to all funded medicines from July next year, costed at $74.5 million a year.

"People will be able to see their doctor for free with Labour's new Medicard, then collect their prescription and pay nothing," he said.

"When people skip their prescriptions because of cost, their health problems can get worse - and that costs everyone more in the long run."

The previous Labour government brought in free presciptions as part of its 2023 Budget.

National heavily criticised the move as too costly at the time, saying it did not make sense for the government to fund the prescriptions universally and immediately promising to reinstate the co-payment fee, with carve-outs for "those that most desperately need it".

During the 2023 election campaign, National promised to reinvest the money saved into a list of specific cancer treatments.

However, when funding for those 13 medicines was not included in the 2024 Budget it was seen as a broken promise, and the public outrage prompted further announcements of additional funding for Pharmac to secure the treatments.

Because funding specific medicines is not recommended, the approach ended up being a much more expensive $604m rollout of funding over four years to fund up to 54 medicines including 26 cancer treatments.

The National-led government also backtracked somewhat over the prescription fees after enabling year-long prescriptions last year, eventually deciding to only charge the $5 fee once a year, rather than for every three-monthly collection.