When it comes to prescription drug coverage, our health system has plenty in common with the United States – and that’s not a good thing
FROM OUR ARCHIVES Ed. note: This commentary was originally published Dec. 10, 2016. Most Canadians would agree that those who need potentially life-saving medications should have ready access to them. Yet prescription drug coverage in Canada varies widely depending on where you live, your health status, income and age. It's time for a universal pharmacare…
Out of control spending on Ontario's drug plan could undermine efforts to provide coverage across Canada
Ontario’s proposed pharmacare plan for those aged 25 and under is a welcome start that hopefully leads to universal drug coverage for all Ontarians. The case for universal coverage is overwhelming. It’s scandalous that in 2017, many Canadians die for lack of affordable access to basic drugs like insulin. Increasingly, even those of us with private health insurance coverage face…
Should we move to a system like that in the U.K., where physicians are paid a salary and work to terms of a contract?
Ontario’s Health Minister Erik Hoskins is a brave man. He has attempted to wrestle a new agreement with Ontario doctors and to drive down outrageous billing – with some 500 doctors billing more than one million dollars a year. Hoskins wanted to redistribute these health dollars for improved physician care. The plan was to engage…
Why aren’t governments and doctors doing more about superbugs and over-prescribing?
By Colleen M. Flood and Bryan Thomas University of Ottawa In 1928, a Petri dish in Alexander Fleming’s lab was accidentally contaminated by a mould spore, leading to the discovery of penicillin and, in time, a revolution in medicine. Almost a century later, that revolution faces a menacing challenge. With the discovery of penicillin, deadly…
Two-tier care and extra-billing being sold to the public as strategies for saving health care
National Medicare Week has just passed, buoyed with optimism as a fresh-faced government takes the reins in Ottawa – elected partly on a promise of renewed federal leadership on health care. Yet these “sunny ways” are overcast by recent developments at the provincial level that entrench and legitimize two-tier care. Saskatchewan has just enacted a…
FROM OUR ARCHIVES Ed. note: This commentary was originally published Dec. 10, 2016. Most Canadians would agree that those who need potentially life-saving medications should have ready access to them. Yet prescription drug coverage in Canada varies widely depending on where you live, your health status, income and age. It's time for a universal pharmacare…
