Hypertension and diabetes treatment affordability and government expenditures following changes in patient cost sharing in the “Farmácia popular” program in Brazil: an interrupted time series study

Background Increasing medicines availability and affordability is a key goal of Brazilian health policies. “Farmacia Popular” (FP) Program is one of the government’s key strategies to achieve this goal. Under FP, antihypertension (HTN) and antiglycemic (DM) medicines have been provided at subsidized prices in private retail settings since 2006, and free of charge since 2011. We aim to assess the impact of sequential changes in FP benefits on patient affordability and government expenditures for HTN and DM treatment under the FP, and examine their implications for public financing mechanisms and program sustainability.