During the election campaign, several U of T experts, including Dr. Samir Sinha and Dr. Danielle Martin, pushed strongly for a national pharmacare program.
“I absolutely hope we will be able to work towards a national pharmacare plan at some point, but the very first step to be taken is addressing the cost of prescription drugs.” Drug costs, Health Minister Dr. Jane Philpott said, “have gotten way out of control” in Canada, which has the second highest per-capita drug costs in the world, after the United States.
“There are a number of mechanisms the federal government has to bring down those drug costs and we will be working quite ambitiously to do that,” Philpott said.
One method is bulk buying. Some provinces are part of the Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, which buys in bulk, and are asking the federal government to join it. Ottawa is directly responsible for drug costs for some groups, including First Nations people.
Full article at: U of T News