At the moment, we are consumed by the SNC-Lavalin Affair. But, Tom Walkom writes, a much more important problem is about to burst onto the political landscape:
One of the more important political events last week was the reminder that Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has committed itself to some form of pharmacare.
I say some form because the government’s Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare is still coy about what its final recommendations will be.
The need for universal pharmacare is painfully obvious:
Most Canadians have some kind of drug coverage. But it varies wildly, depending on age, province of residency and employer.
Some face high out-of-pocket costs in the form of deductibles or co-payments. Others do not.
About 20 per cent of Canadians have no real drug coverage at all. Yet Canadians pay among the highest prices in the world for pharmaceuticals and spend more on drugs than citizens of almost every other country in the world.
The advisory council report notes that Canadians spent $34 billion on pharmaceuticals last year and the cost continues to rise exponentially.
A universal pharmacare program, such as that enjoyed by every other major industrial country that offers universal health care, would go a long way toward solving this cost problem. That’s the conclusion of health economists who have studied the issue.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau would like to see a program that would plug the holes:
Morneau’s preference, which he outlined in an impolitic burst of honesty last year, is a more modest pharmacare system aimed strictly at those with no other form of drug coverage – a fill-in-the-gaps program.
The problem with this is that it would tack on another dissonant part to the Rube Goldberg contraption that is the Canadian drug system, without addressing costs in any meaningful way.
Universal pharmacare would do just that:
Theoretically such a federal-provincial-territorial-Indigenous agency could co-exist with a fill-in-the-gaps system. But it makes more sense to go to all of this bother only for something more comprehensive, such as universal pharmacare.
Will pharmacare be a promise kept? At the moment, Canadians are focused on the promises Justin hasn't kept.
Image: Council of Canadians
10 comments:
In reading this article, as well as the Star editorial yesterday on the interim pharmacare report, Owen, all I could think of was Trudeau's loss of credibility. Even if he promises pharmacare in a second mandate, voters will remember the sincerity with which he avowed that 2015 would be the last election under the FPTP system, and we all know what happened there.
Fooled me once, shame on me. Fooled me twice....
I suspect that will be the case, Lorne. But what an opportunity it would be to waste!
We can only wonder what basket of goodies the Liberals will be dispensing to the plebs before the election. Last time they got away with inspiring promises. This time it'll probably take coin of the realm.
Vote Green, Vote Often.
I hope he doesn’t try the second mandate promise. I think K. Wynne in Ontario offered a few tantalizing bits that way too. Didn’t work for her, likely won’t for JT. But then, look what we Ontarians got instead. [sigh]. Mac
It's hard to convince people that you'll keep your promises, Mound, when you have a record of breaking them.
Precisely, Mac. We didn't make the situation better.
I'm convinced. Vote Green
I suspect that a number of Canadians are seriously considering your advice, zoombats.
Justin likes smoke and mirrors. His real constituents are rich and powerful corporations and the US State department. He will try to fool us of course.
I'm with zoombats. I'm voting Green.
An unscientific poll seems to have developed at this site, Toby. The results could prove troublesome for Justin.
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