Eric Hoskins’ quiet campaign for pharmacare

Posted on April 24, 2016 in Health Policy Context

TheStar.com – Opinion/Commentary – Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins believes national universal drug plan may finally be within reach.
Apr 23 2016.   By: Bob Hepburn, Politics

By almost any measure, Eric Hoskins has had a rough time over the past few months.

A chorus of doctors is demanding he be fired as Ontario’s health minister because their fees are being trimmed; patients are staging protest rallies over cuts at local hospitals; health-care stakeholders are resisting his plans to dramatically reform the home-care system; political opponents are attacking him for the government’s handling of the suicide crisis in the remote First Nations community of Attawapiskat. The list goes on.

Despite the attacks, though, Hoskins has forged ahead with his personal agenda of sweeping changes that ultimately could affect everything from doctors’ incomes to where patients go for treatment of a minor ailment.
One of the changes he has been quietly pushing without much fanfare is a national pharmacare program. < http://pharmacare2020.ca/assets/pdf/The_Future_of_Drug_Coverage_in_Canada.pdf >

“We’ve seen multiple studies now that have demonstrated that a national pharmacare program makes sense – it makes sense financially, it makes sense in terms of health-care outcomes and it makes sense in terms of equity,” Hoskins said in an email.  “And I think it makes sense, intuitively, to all of us as Canadians.”

As Hoskins sees it, pharmacare would provide free, life-saving drugs to all Canadians. Currently, up to 20 per cent of Canadians fail to fill their prescriptions, such as blood pressure medication, because they can’t afford it.
In such a relatively rich country as Canada, no one should have to choose between paying for medicine or putting food on the table, he says.

Under a national plan, prescription drugs would be included in the medicare system similar to doctor and hospital costs.

The federal and provincial governments would pay for the program, which could run more than $1 billion a year, with the costs split between Ottawa and the provinces, although it would mean slightly higher taxes.
But the net savings – and they are huge, nearly $10 billion a year by some estimates – would come by eliminating the need for private drug insurance.

By making pharmacare one of his top priorities, Hoskins is going down a well-worn path. Similar calls for a universal plan go back 50 years, yet none has succeeded.

That’s despite polls that show more than 90 per cent of Canadians support universal access to prescription drugs. And it’s despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Canadians have no private drug plans or plans that provide only minimal drug coverage. These people usually have minimum-wage jobs or temporary or seasonal work.

The reasons Canada is nowhere close to implementing such a plan are simple: stiff opposition from private insurance companies and skittish politicians who don’t want anything to do with raising any taxes – even for a sensible and fiscally solid cause – for fear of voter backlash.

Over the past year, Hoskins has quietly pushed the pharmacare agenda with provincial and federal health ministers. As a start, he convinced his colleagues at a meeting in January to set up a working group to look into the issue.

Now he’s stepping up his efforts as Ottawa turns its attention towards the coming negotiations later this year on a new federal-provincial health accord. He wants pharmacare to be a key part of the accord talks.

Hoskins knows his work is cut out for him because Jane Philpott, the new federal health minister who like Hoskins is a doctor, told a Commons committee earlier this month that she lacks any mandate to create a universal plan, stating “it sounds like it might be expensive.”

Also, several provinces are balking, saying they want to see how much cash Ottawa is willing to cough up before they will start talking with them.

In July, the proposed plan will be high on the agenda when the premiers hold their annual meeting. In October, Hoskins will host the next federal-provincial meeting of health ministers, where he will again lobby hard for a national framework accord on pharmacare.

His long-term goal is to have an agreement by July 1, 2017, that says at a minimum Canada will have a national plan in place within five years.

To help Hoskins succeed, the public needs to become involved and tell politicians they care deeply about this issue. It will be impossible to get traction on pharmacare unless there’s a sustained public call for action.

A concerted public campaign would help ensure improved access to prescription drugs for all Ontario and Canadian residents, providing them with the medications they need.  And the timing for such a campaign might be perfect.

Says Hoskins: “Next year marks Canada’s 150th anniversary. I can’t imagine a better gift to Canadians than a national pharmacare program.”

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/04/23/eric-hoskins-quiet-campaign-for-pharmacare-hepburn.html >

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