Drug costs are the fastest rising expense in health care and, without a national drug plan, they’ll continue to hit Canadians unevenly and unfairly depending on where we live, whether we’re in hospital or out, if we have a job with a drug plan and how much we make.
Last year, Canadians spent $30 billion on medicine – 17% of total health spending. Only hospital costs were higher. With no national system in place for drug purchasing or a national standard, there remains vast differences in drug coverage from province to province. Our national Medicare program spreads the costs for necessary health procedures across the broader population, but prescribed drug treatments which are equally as necessary, are not included.
This omission challenges our idea of equal access to care as it leaves the financial burden of medication cost on the individual.
Why are we paying the third highest prices in the world for brand-name prescription drugs? It is because of the price-setting process favouring Big Pharma profits which go unchallenged by the ineffective consumer protection of the Patented Medicines Prices Review Board as well as extended drug patents. The cost of prescription medicine is an unacceptable financial drain. Compounded now by the economic crisis, hundreds of thousands of Canadians are not only losing their jobs, but also the family drug benefits that go with them.
The government refuses to take on the big drug companies. Even with the provinces and territories on side, they’ve taken no action on the National Pharmaceutical Strategy. Rather than trying to reduce drug costs, in 2006 the government actually extended patent protection in spite of opposition protest. To add insult to injury, the promise made in 1987 by the big Pharma companies to spend 10% of sales revenue on research in exchange for years more monopoly pricing was never kept. Now, Canada has the second worst Research &Development-to-sales ratio in the industrialized world.
And yet, the big pharmaceutical corporations keep coming back for more and the government seems only too willing to pave the way to more profits for them. No big surprise that last June, they caved under the pressure tactics by Big Phama’s and made recommendations to legalize direct-to-consumer-advertising (DTCA) in Bill C-51.
Make no mistake, this was about boosting drug sales and revenue at the expense of Canadians’ health. We fought the government then and we’ll fight them again if they try to sneak DTCA into legislation again.
The time for federal government action is long overdue. Stop risking lives and start saving them.