Universal pharmacare touted as way to save billions (Canada)
source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/universal-pharmacare-touted-as-way-to-save-billio...
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'Creating a national pharmacare program could slash more than $10.7-billion off Canada's $25-billion-a-year drug bill, according to a new study that dismisses out-of-hand the notion that a public drug plan is unaffordable.
“Canadians cannot afford not to have universal pharmacare,” said Marc-André Gagnon, an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy at Carleton University in Ottawa.
The report, being released Monday in Ottawa, argues that Canada's jumbled assortment of public and private plans and wildly varying drug policies across jurisdictions is inefficient, costly and inequitable.
But, above all, it says Canada pays too much for drugs – between 16 and 40 per cent more than other industrialized countries – in a bid to attract pharmaceutical investment.
In fact, the vast majority of the purported savings – $10.2-billion – would come from adopting a drug-purchasing policy based on market competition and the assumption prices would drop 37 per cent. That would likely provoke a backlash from the pharmaceutical industry and may be politically unpalatable, researchers concede. However, in a number of other scenarios presented in the study, Prof. Gagnon shows, even without purchasing drugs at that lower price, a national program would still deliver net savings of ranging from $2.6-billion to $4.5-billion.
The report suggested that doing rigorous drug reviews and price negotiations, as done in New Zealand, could generate annual savings of $9.3-billion. Savings from cheaper administration costs, eliminating federal tax subsidies to insurance plans and eliminating multiple private plans would produce more than $1.4-billion in savings, for a total of about $10.7-billion.'
Read more here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/universal-pharmacare-touted-as-way-to...
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What do you guys think about this sort of thing being implemented in the USA?
“Canadians cannot afford not to have universal pharmacare,” said Marc-André Gagnon, an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy at Carleton University in Ottawa.
The report, being released Monday in Ottawa, argues that Canada's jumbled assortment of public and private plans and wildly varying drug policies across jurisdictions is inefficient, costly and inequitable.
But, above all, it says Canada pays too much for drugs – between 16 and 40 per cent more than other industrialized countries – in a bid to attract pharmaceutical investment.
In fact, the vast majority of the purported savings – $10.2-billion – would come from adopting a drug-purchasing policy based on market competition and the assumption prices would drop 37 per cent. That would likely provoke a backlash from the pharmaceutical industry and may be politically unpalatable, researchers concede. However, in a number of other scenarios presented in the study, Prof. Gagnon shows, even without purchasing drugs at that lower price, a national program would still deliver net savings of ranging from $2.6-billion to $4.5-billion.
The report suggested that doing rigorous drug reviews and price negotiations, as done in New Zealand, could generate annual savings of $9.3-billion. Savings from cheaper administration costs, eliminating federal tax subsidies to insurance plans and eliminating multiple private plans would produce more than $1.4-billion in savings, for a total of about $10.7-billion.'
Read more here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/universal-pharmacare-touted-as-way-to...
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What do you guys think about this sort of thing being implemented in the USA?
