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Give migraine a break to give the economy a boost

The biggest reason that all politicians should care about migraine is because of the drain - and the potential boost - to the economy. 

Economic analysis by Deloitte Access Economics found the total economic cost of migraine in Australia is $35.7 billion per year. This is made-up of:

  • $14.3 billion of health system costs; including hospital, testing, treatment and pharmaceuticals, GP, specialist consultations and allied health professional services;
  • $16.3 billion of productivity costs made up of absenteeism and presenteeism (reduced productivity while at work) and reduced workforce participation;
  • $5.1 billion of other costs such as carer costs (when family members take time off work to care for someone with migraine) and wider costs to society arising from loss of taxation revenue due to reduced workforce participation.

For chronic migraine - that is people with more than half of every month lost to migraine attacks - the economic costs per person is $21,706, while for episodic migraine, it is $6,137. Most of these costs are incurred by people between the ages of 20 and 64 – their most productive years.

Up to 45% of women in the key 25-54 age group - or 2.45 million women - are unable to fully participate in the workforce and pursue their career because of migraine. This means that the number of women in the prime of their lives that are either restricted or taken out of the economy by migraine every year is about ten times the number of women stepping out to have children, and that migraine is the number one cause of gender inequality.

New meds unlock the opportunity for a significant economic boost

The vast majority of people with migraine starting on CGRP therapy achieve more than a 50% reduction in migraine affected days within 3 months, and many achieve more than a 75% reduction.

Migraine Australia support groups are full of people who not long ago were unable to care for themselves, let alone their families, and within months of starting CGRP therapy are back to a full life and getting back to their careers. But they were the fortunate ones who could afford it, had the privilege of access to good doctors and neurologists, and had persisted to fight for access. 

For each one of us that has gotten off welfare and back to work thanks to CGRP therapy, there are thousands more who have never received effective medical care for their migraine, certainly have never seen a neurologist, and are a long way from getting access to the new medications under current restrictions.

Data from Services Australia (obtained under FOI indicated) that there are around 15,000 people on Disability Support Pension with migraine listed as one of their disabilities - a remarkable figure given Centrelink staff often dissuade migraine warriors from applying, telling them they are not eligible. Most do not try, again believing the stigma that migraine isn’t a ‘real’ disability, staying on Jobseeker with medical exemptions for long periods of time.

We conservatively estimate the number of people with significant migraine on Jobseeker payments is another 180,000 people. Many of whom are long term unemployed with no realistic prospect of returning to work without getting their migraine under control. 

Even if we managed to get just half of those ~195,000 people off long term welfare and back to work, the savings to the budget would more than cover the costs of listing the entire CGRP medication class, with plenty left over to invest in decent migraine services, research, and awareness campaigns. 

Add to this the significant savings across the health and disability systems, increased tax revenue, ticking a number of goals of the National Wellbeing Framework, and broad economic and social benefit - particularly in improved productivity, reduced absenteeism and presenteeism across almost all business sectors, and decreasing poverty and homelessness in women - and you start to appreciate why we are talking about a ‘migraine revolution’. 

Not giving migraine a break is costing you money

Not giving the migraine community our new medications has cost a significant amount of taxpayers money, as well as caused years of unnecessary disability. 

Please pledge your vote and act now to urge all sides of politics to give migraine a break. 

Tell our leaders you want them to stop wasting tax-payer money keeping people with migraine debilitated. Tell them they need to give migraine a break, to give the economy a boost, and save money doing it. 

 


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