Removal of Preferential Currency for Medicine in the Budget and Forecast of Price Increases Next Year

With the continued reduction of government support and the removal of preferential currency for medicine next year, media outlets have reported an 'unexpected' increase in drug prices, imposing additional pressures on wage-earning classes such as workers and retirees. ILNA news agency reported on Sunday, December 2, that among the consequences of removing preferential currency is the calculation of drug prices at the new rate and their importation at free market rates, stating: 'Prices will increase in an unexpected manner.' ILNA quoted a retired worker with a child suffering from an autoimmune disease, who stated that after 30 years of labor, he must spend 'up to one-third of his salary' on medications that are not covered by basic insurance and face severe limitations under supplementary insurance. This retired worker claimed that the rising cost of medication could lead to his child's death, stating, 'He has nothing to sell, nor any income to spend.' Alireza Zafargandi, the Minister of Health in the fourteenth government, announced on December 8 that the preferential currency for medicine would be removed next year, and the Ministry of Health is preparing to manage this change. Following widespread reactions to these statements, he wrote on social media on December 10 that the first type of preferential currency (4200 tomans) for medicine had been removed since last year, and for the coming year, medicine will still be supplied with the second type of preferential currency and through the Drug Subsidy payment. The fourteenth government, led by Masoud Pezeshkian, has reduced the budget for importing essential goods and medicine by $3 billion in the 2025 budget bill, lowering it from $15 billion to $12 billion, allocating a budget of 90 trillion tomans to the Food and Drug Organization. Meanwhile, Mehdi Pir-Salehi, the head of the Food and Drug Organization, criticized the inadequacy of this budget, emphasizing that to maintain the price of medicines and medical equipment next year, 'at least double' this budget is needed. Mehdi Pir-Salehi predicted in an interview with the Islamic Republic Television that the inadequacy of the proposed budget would impose pressure on the people and companies supplying medicines and medical equipment. Ahmad Alavi, an economist residing in Sweden, also stated in an interview with Voice of America that the Iranian government's priority is not to ensure the welfare, food, and health of the Iranian people. According to this university professor and economic researcher, the Islamic Republic, amid sanctions and economic pressures on the Iranian people, allocates the majority of the country's budget to military, security, and ideological activities, prioritizing its own survival over meeting the basic needs of the people. According to the Research Center of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, as of October 25 of this year, the poverty rate increased by 0.4 percent last year, affecting over 30 percent of Iran's population, and it is expected that this year's figures will remain at the same level. Currently, the minimum monthly wage for workers covered by labor law, who are married and have children, is about 11 million tomans, while some estimates from labor activists who previously held positions in government institutions indicate that the cost of living has reached about 37 million tomans per month. Farshad Momeni, an economist, emphasized that the government's budget policies for next year have made the situation increasingly dangerous and concerning. The inaction of the Islamic Republic regarding the issue of medicine and treatment, according to Hassan Nayeb-Hossein and Ahmad Alavi, continues the health crisis in Iran with the removal of preferential currency for medicine in Pezeshkian's government. ILNA's narrative on 'price liberalization' in the 2025 budget indicates that 'the poor will become poorer.' The Ministry of Health's response to the 'death of 70 dialysis patients': 'It is related to the past.'