Victoria Alarcon
Sports & Health Editor
A new study out of Carleton University found that up to $10.7 billion can be saved from the annual $25-billion drug bill if a national pharmacare plan is implemented.
The study’s author, Carleton professor Marc-Andre Gagnon, notes that the public and private plans that Canada now employs are impractical for a population looking for affordable drug coverage.
The amount of money the country can save by cutting tax subsidies to various insurance plans, lowering administration costs and removing multiple private plans adds up to $1.4 billion. Most of the savings would come from the country’s ability to negotiate better prices and enforce drug reviews once the plan becomes installed.
York professor Joel Lexchin, school of health policy & management, agrees that the pharmacare plan in Canada needs a solution.
“There are probably at least four or five million Canadians who have either no drug coverage and have to pay out of pocket for the products or are significantly undercovered,” said Lexchin. “They either do without the pills or split pills.”
The outcome inevitably leaves many Canadians sicker than they were before, he added.
The plan would not only help to prevent costly drug prices, but would get rid of the many other problems Canada’s pharmaceutical policy encounters on a daily basis.
According to Mary Wiktorowicz, chair and associate professor at the school of health policy and management at York University, Canada’s drug plan suffers from weak practices, especially in the prescription process.
“There are a lot of drugs used inappropriately,” said Wiktoroxicz. “Pharmaceutical companies promote evidence that is not solid and do not talk about the side effects in using that drug.”
According to Wiktorowicz, the amount of control drug companies have gained over the years in Canada has many health professionals wanting to act and curtail the pharmaceutical industry from spinning out of control. These concerns become even more urgent if no national pharmacare plan is implemented soon.
“The pharmaceutical industry is a very strong group and they spend about $30,000 a year on individual doctors in Canada to promote their drugs,” explained Wiktorowicz.
$30,000 is only a part of the $2.25 billion to $4 billion that drug companies spend on advertising to patients and doctors. Lexchin said that these drug companies’ ads are very effective and change the way doctors prescribe medication.
“They’re not going to say nice things about their competitors’ drugs, they’re going to be pushing their own to increase their revenue,” said Lexchin when asked about the current state of Canada’s drug policies.
According to the report, Canada has already been recognized globally as the third or fourth in expensive brand name drugs after the United States, Switzerland and Germany. However, the statistics of the report are no surprise for health professors working in the field, as Canada works hard when it comes to attracting pharmaceutical investments and will offer a lot to achieve it.
“When a drug company wants to get a new drug paid for publicly by a country, the government looks at this and decides what the drug is worth in terms of its benefits,” said Lexchin. “The government decides it’s worth $0.80 a pill, but in order to get a drug company to invest here in Ontario, we’ll give them $0.90 a pill as an incentive to put their investment in our provinces as opposed to another country or province.”
However, a national pharmacare plan would eliminate provincial competition and instead allow provinces to work together in negotiating a suitable price for the country, Wiktorowicz noted.
The money that the study’s suggestions would save could be funneled into drug safety and public information groups that would help educate Canadians about the reality of various drugs and their benefits. For example, the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network (DSEN) works towards finding out whether a drug is safe or effective in real-world settings.
It is a system that Canadians desperately need and one that Wiktorowicz supports. In her mind, it helps make sure people are safe and satisfies those wondering “once the drugs are on the market, who’s watching?”
When it comes to an international healthcare, both Lexchin and Wiktorowicz found some countries have done a lot to ensure their citizens are being cared for.
“There are countries that offer a national pharmacare plan for their population and have lower drug prices,” said Wiktorowicz. “New Zealand, France, the United Kingdom – in terms of coverage, they are doing better.”
Lexchin, however, still wonders if Canada will follow the example set by these countries and implement a similar policy.
“Since the Conservatives were elected in 2006, national pharmaceutical strategy has ground to a halt,” said Lexchin. “It’s their political philosophy. They do not embrace a collective view of society where everybody is responsible for everybody else.”
Lexchin is optimistic about what students can do in helping to eliminate costly drug plans in Canada. He hopes that students will voice their opinion and make their feelings known about the level of drug coverage in Ontario.
