Advisory council on National Pharmacare formed, how will this affect things. See the linked article. Our thoughts here;
This is not the first time the Feds have looked at doing this and certainly monies have been poured into it in the past without results. We are one of the few nations without any national pharmacare plan or significant policy and as such pay amongst the highest costs in the industrialized world for drugs.
To be clear, development of such a plan is needed given the new landscape of expensive drugs and particularly biologics. The hint from a few corners that there is a thought that they would look to pay for all drugs is highly improbable. What is more likely to occur is some form of capped cost program, or a national buying strategy. The best result for all involved is delivering as a minimum a cost structure for the country that brings scripts into a more predictable pricing model, competitive with what consumers in other countries have to pay out of pocket.
This would help those with benefit plans to better manage costs, provincial catastrophic programs to reduce expenses and consumers to have more affordable access. It would also accomplish that without a deficit driven government adding to that number. Structured negotiations, more emphasis on formularies and drug management, more clear education about success of drugs, treatments and comparables would be very cost effective without breaking the federal budget.
This is long overdue and if they do this correctly it could be a positive piece of the puzzle. That said, we’ve been down this road before so lets see what they come up with.
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