Access to medicines is a human right.
Pharmaceuticals are so important to health and well-being that the United Nations has declared that all nations should ensure universal and equitable access to them. To fulfil that obligation, every high-income country with a universal health care system provides universal coverage of medically necessary prescription drugs – every such country except Canada.
Pharmacare 2020
We are more than 1,000 experts in health care and public policy concerned with the quality, equity, and sustainability of Canada’s health care system. We appreciate the government’s recent commitment to pass a Canada Pharmacare Act in 2023 and to develop a formulary and bulk purchasing plan for essential medicines by 2025; however, we are asking the government to increase the pace and scope of its commitment to national pharmacare. Canadians should not have to wait for a universal and comprehensive public pharmacare program.
Medicare is incomplete without pharmacare.
In Canada, universal public health insurance effectively ends as soon as a patient receives a prescription to fill. This creates inequities in access to medicines, exposes households and businesses to unnecessary financial risk, and reduces Canada’s purchasing power on the global pharmaceutical market. None of these things is good for the health care system or the economy.
Canadians deserve better.
Since the 1960s, five separate national commissions have recommended that medically necessary prescription drugs be included in Canada’s universal, public health insurance system. They all recommended such a program because it is the most equitable and affordable way to ensure universal access to necessary medicines in Canada.
Canada has a plan.
The latest major government report on pharmacare – the June 2019 report of the Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare – provides a detailed and feasible plan for implementing universal pharmacare. This plan begins with federal legislation and universal coverage of essential medicines. It would then be expanded to become a comprehensive system of public drug coverage—like those integrated within the health care systems of comparable countries—by 2027.
National pharmacare should be like Canadian Medicare.
As recommended by the government’s Advisory Council, national pharmacare should embody all five of the principles in the Canada Health Act:
Universality: all residents of Canada must be covered on equal terms and conditions;
Public administration: the plan must be publicly funded and administered;
Comprehensiveness: the plan must cover a broad range of safe, effective, evidence-based treatments as listed on a national formulary;
Accessibility: access to covered medicines must be based on medical need, not ability to pay;
Portability: benefits must be portable across provinces and territories when people travel or move.
The evidence is clear.
National pharmacare does not need to be studied further before proceeding with implementation. The moral and clinical case for universal prescription drug coverage is clear. The administrative infrastructure needed to run such a program exists. Further, government and academic studies estimate that a universal, public pharmacare program will save Canadians between $4 billion and $7 billion per year.
Now is the time to act.
Canada has the knowledge and capacity to run a world-class universal pharmacare system. Such a program will improve the quality, equity, and sustainability of Canada’s health care system and the competitiveness of the Canadian economy. This is why we – more than 1,000 experts in health care and public policy – recommend that Canada implement a universal, comprehensive, public pharmacare system without delay.