Tag Archives: medicare

New paper calling for a Canadian National Public Drug Plan for all

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OTTAWA, May 25, 2016  /CNW/ – Today the Canadian Health Coalition is launching its policy brief “A National Public Drug Plan for All”. Author Julie White brings together many of the academic studies showing the financial savings, improved drug safety, and increased equality that would occur under a national public drug plan.

Canada remains the only country with a universal health system that doesn’t include prescription medicines. “The proposals contained in this paper would bring Canada into the 21st century and align our public health plan with other comparable countries,” says White.

According to Angus Reid poll conducted in 2015, 23% of Canadians did not fill a prescription in the past 12-months due to the cost of medicines. “We know that a national public drug plan would be enormously popular with the support of 91% of Canadians” says White.

Last month the Federal Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Philpott made comments to the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Health that she had no mandate to create a universal pharmacare programme and that “it sounds like it might be expensive…There are public drug plans across the country for people who can’t afford medication.” But as Julie White explains, “the reason why drugs are so expensive in Canada is precisely because we do not have a national public drug plan. We pay far more for drugs because we are unable to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies for the whole population, as is done in many other countries.”

Reliable research has shown that on a total cost of $27 billion paid for drugs, we pay up to $11 billion more than we would with a national plan. Meanwhile both provincial plans and private insurance plans are struggling under the high prices and cutting back coverage.

This paper is launched while the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Health is studying the development of a national pharmacare program and while members of the Canadian Health Coalition are meeting with their MPs in a Canada-wide constituency lobby.

The Canadian Health Coalition is a non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental organization calling on the Federal government to initiate conversations with the provinces and territories on a national public drug plan.

You will find a copy of the full policy briefing here: http://healthcoalition.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/National-Public-Drug-Plan-for-All-May-2016.pdf

The Canadian Health Coalition is a public advocacy organization dedicated to the protection and improvement of Medicare. You can learn more about our work on our website (healthcoalition.ca).

Facebook: CanadianHealthCoalition |Twitter:@healthcoalition

 

SOURCE Canadian Health Coalition

For further information: or to arrange an interview with the author Julie White, contact: Adrienne Silnicki, National Coordinator, Canadian Health Coalition, Cell: 613-402-6793 E-mail asilnicki@healthcoalition.ca

Source: New paper calling for a National Public Drug Plan for all

Trans-Pacific trade deal will hurt Canadian health care–CUPE

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As Canada prepares to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPPA) report confirms the massive deal will severely weaken our public health care system.

The far-reaching TPP covers 12 countries that represent 40 per cent of global trade (Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, the United States, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Brunei, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia). The deal will likely be signed on February 4, while ratification could take up to two years.

Combined with reports the TPP will cost Canada 58,000 jobs, it’s another reason Canada should not be signing or ratifying the deal.

The CCPA report finds the TPP will:

  • make it more difficult and expensive for Canadian governments to establish new public health programs, including pharmacare,
  • undermine health regulation, and
  • obstruct efforts to renew and expand public health care in the face of new challenges.

US-style patent protections will mean higher drug costs

By caving to US corporate demands for longer pharmaceutical patent protections, Canada has negotiated a deal that will see prescription drug costs increase by $636 million annually once the TPP comes into force. This will be an added financial burden for public health care, employer benefit programs and other private insurers, as well as individuals. If the Canadian health care system has to shoulder increased drug costs, they may have to cut health care services and jobs.

The TPP’s impact on drug costs will be felt most acutely in developing countries, as longer patents block the entry of lower-priced generic drugs. This limits access to life-saving medicines. The international humanitarian medical organization Médecins Sans Frontières has highlighted how competition between generic drug makers dramatically drove down the costs of HIV medications, helping expand treatment to six million people in the developing world.

Foreign investor protections that promote privatization

The TPP gives foreign investors the right to sue governments if they feel a policy decision limits their profits. This system, called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), bypasses Canadian courts in favour of secretive, pro-investor tribunals that award enormous sums of money at a government’s expense. A recent example is Eli Lilly’s $500-million NAFTA claim against Canada.

These investor rights rules cost Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. They also lock in privatization and deregulation. For example, when private insurers already provide coverage for prescription drugs, like in Canada, an ISDS claim would make it very expensive if the government to decide to bring this coverage into the public system.

The TPP’s ISDS rules would make it next to impossible to create a public national prescription drug program. It would also make it prohibitively expensive to bring health care support services like laundry, IT or food services back into the public domain, even if the private contract has failed.

Attacking Canada’s pride

Canadians are proud of their health care system. Trade deals like the TPP, CETA and the Trade in Services Agreement are dangerous to our public health care. As the CCPA report concludes, the TPP is the worst of all worlds. It incorporates problems from previous trade agreements, and introduces new threats to Medicare.

Source: Trans-Pacific trade deal will hurt Canadian health care | Canadian Union of Public Employees

Time for Premiers to Stand Up to Federal Bullies on Health Care

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http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

Paul Moist

Paul Moist

National President, Canadian Union of Public Employees

07/24/2013

In order to ensure that all Canadians receive the same high-quality, publicly delivered health care in every community across the country, provincial and territorial governments need stable and adequate funding from the federal government

When Canada’s premiers meet for the annual Council of the Federation this week, the future of health care is a critical item on the agenda.

The timing of this meeting is critical. It is the last meeting of our premiers before the 10 year Health Accord expires. The accord sets the terms for health care funding and priorities between the federal and provincial governments. Too bad Prime Minister Harper is not even taking the time to meet with premiers for a discussion.

The federal government has been neglecting its responsibility to protect public Medicare. We are facing a federal government that has abdicated its role in upholding national standards. They cut funding to the Health Council of Canada, the body responsible for ensuring national standards for quality care were met. They have walked away from discussions with the provinces to control the cost of drugs and forge a national drug coverage program. They cut health care funding for veterans and refugees, and refused to uphold the Canada Health Act’s protections for patients against user fees and extra-billing.

Now, with a new phase of funding agreements on the table, the federal Conservative government has presented a plan for health care that will mean $36 billion less for Medicare over the next 10 years.

The cuts start in 2014 with elimination of Canada Health Tranfser (CHT) equalization, then sharp cuts in CHT increases beginning in 2017. Instead of increasing at 6 per cent a year, the health transfer will be tied to economic growth, with a 3 per cent floor. Over time, the federal government’s share of health care spending will shrink to a small fraction of its original 50 per cent contribution — down to 18.6 per cent by 2024. This is not acceptable.

The federal government needs to be a full partner with the provinces and territories on health care. We need national standards for health care we need to uphold the Canada Health Act. This is important for all Canadians but cuts to health care funding will have deeper impacts on some of us. Women will continue to shoulder the biggest burden, as the primary providers of both paid and unpaid care. Canadians marginalized by class, gender, race, disability and other oppressions suffer most when federal funding and national standards are weakened.

CUPE also wants to make sure that we avoid a repeat of what happened in the 1990s when Federal health transfers were cut. Successive levels of government cut services and privatized them, and ended up imposing higher costs for families and more unpaid work for women; longer waits and two-tier care; more hospital overcrowding and avoidable deaths from medical errors and health care associated infections; and worse quality and higher costs for services delivered by the private sector. This is not a scenario we can look forward to with equanimity, not only because CUPE represents front-line health care workers but because all CUPE members, no matter where they work, depend upon Canada’s health care system.

You know that the Federal government has choices. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has shown that, instead of downloading financial problems onto other levels of government, Ottawa can increase program spending and transfers by $25 billion in 2012 alone — and more over time — while maintaining fiscal sustainability. Over 87 per cent of Canadians — in every region of the country and across party lines — support public solutions to make health care stronger.

We need a federal government that is invested in improving our health care — not one that slowly erodes the public services that make Canada great. We need a federal government that will protect Medicare by vigorously enforcing the enforce Canada Health Act’s ban on user fees and extra billing. We need a government that will be proactive about creating national strategies to address pressing issues in health care, like health associated illnesses. Finally we need a government that is willing to invest in improving Medicare — by creating a national continuing care program that will care for our growing senior population in a publicly-funded and publicly-delivered system and establishing a national pharmacare program.

The role of a premier is to stand up to federal government bullying on behalf of all Canadians. We are asking the Premiers to send a strong message to the Harper Conservative Government: Get back to the table and get back on board to support public health care for all in Canada.