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
