Latest Liberal-NDP scheme will ensure cutting edge medicines don't come to Canada
Is pharmacare doomed to fail? Last week, Quebec announced that it would opt of the Liberal-NDP plan for a national pharmacare program. This week, it was Alberta’s turn. Health Minister Adriana LaGrange blasted the lack of provincial consultation and accused the federal government of overstepping its jurisdiction.
“We’re not going to allow Ottawa to pick and choose what coverage should be available to Albertans based on issues they find politically palatable.” Instead of taking orders from Ottawa, Alberta will take the cash. “Give us the dollars,” LaGrange said. “Allow us to enhance the programs we actually have now, rather than create more bureaucracy.”
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In response, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh attacked Quebec Premier François Legault and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. “I’m not surprised at the Conservative governments that have cut investments in health care. These are the same premiers that, when you look at their province, they made massive cuts that hurt workers and patients.”
Ah, the C-word. Never mind that Legault’s government doesn’t go by that name: it’s a convenient excuse to attack the ideology, and by extension the federal Conservatives as well. Singh is eager to savour his pharmacare “victory” and position the NDP as the true alternative to the Tories. And since he has as much a chance of gaining seats in Quebec as he does in Alberta, bashing those two governments is a low-risk strategy.
But the NDP aren’t the only ones paying politics with this deal. The Liberals are as well, starting with the choice of contraceptive and diabetes medication as the first drugs to be covered.
Contraception is a relatively low-cost item for the feds: it’s already fully covered in B.C. and Manitoba, and partly covered in Ontario. Most private health plans — which four in five Canadians have — pay for it as well. More importantly, the coverage appeals to a key voter demographic — women — that the Liberals need to get back. The latest polls show that 36 per cent would vote Conservative, compared to 26 per cent who would vote Liberal.
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As for diabetes, that is also a numbers game. Nearly ten per cent of Canadians — six million people — suffer from the disease, with an additional six million classified as “pre-diabetic.” Rates are even higher among seniors (20 per cent) and First Nations populations on reserve (17 per cent). Almost everyone knows someone with diabetes and knows that insulin is a life-saver.
But that doesn’t mean you need universal pharmacare to cover people who can’t afford it. It’s like bringing in a $27 billion-dollar bazooka to kill a fly. A study released last week by the Montreal Economic Institute found that only 2.8 per cent of Canadians currently have no drug coverage whatsoever. Twenty-five million people have private insurance, and existing provincial plans subsidize or cover a host of medications for persons who do not, including low-income patients and seniors.
The study also confirmed that imposing a single-payer universal drug insurance plan would jeopardize the quality of coverage for at least 21.5 million people. That’s because a single-payer model would not fund many medications currently covered by private plans, including innovative medicines.
Based on the experiences of countries like New Zealand, cutting edge drugs won’t be introduced into the Canadian market at all, because a universal plan would deem them too costly. A 2019 report commissioned by Medicines New Zealand ranked the country last for access to medicines and pharmaceutical investment among 20 OECD nations. Of 304 medicines introduced between 2011 and 2017, New Zealand funded only 17. Life-saving cancer therapies and other innovative medicines were rendered unavailable.
In other words, national single-payer pharmacare will consign Canadians to the same problems as national single-payer medicare: lack of choice, rationing of care, and worse outcomes. Instead of keeping what works and fixing what’s broken, the NDP chose to score political points, and the Liberals bought themselves another year in power.
So kudos to Alberta and Quebec for standing up and opting out. Let’s hope other provinces join them and expose this deal for what it is: a political game that leaves patients in the cold.
Postmedia News
Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.
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