BC FORUM News - from The Advocate, June, 2014

We need national Pharmacare

The need for a national pharmacare program is becoming desperate, says Dr. Jeff Turnbull, chief of staff at Ottawa Hospital. Patients are doing without medicine that could potentially cure them because they can’t afford it.

“For the first time in my career, I have patients saying: I just can’t afford this. I am going to have to live with my illness,” says Turnbull.

Patients are left to struggle with painful and debilitating disease for the rest of their lives because new drugs for rheumatoid arthritis cost $30,000. The cost of drugs to combat hepatitis C is in the range of $80,000.

Turnbull despaired that doctors will have to make life-and-death decisions based on people’s ability to pay.

A study by the Canadian Medical Association found that one in ten Canadians cannot afford to fill prescriptions. The record is worst in B.C. where 17 percent do without prescribed drugs.

The fragmented pharmacare systems found in Canada lack the administrative efficiency and purchasing power of a single-payer system which could save Canadians as much as $14-billion per year.

The Health Council of Canada, now disbanded by the Harper government, initially worked towards a pharmacare plan for catastrophic drug coverage, aiming to reduce costs through bulk federal purchasing and coordinated prescribing practices.

The Harper government, however, began to back away from this initiative shortly after the 2006 election. It is an issue that requires federal leadership. The provinces cannot do it on their own.