Faced with a crowd of 2,000 seniors protesting in front of the provincial legislature last Tuesday, the provincial government reneged on its commitment to a means test for Pharmacare benefits. This is a bad sign. Seniors currently pay a maximum 75 cents a day ($275 per year) for prescription drugs that are listed by Pharmacare, and taxpayers pick up the rest. If the government is afraid to take the baby step of means testing for Pharmacare, it is unlikely to make more significant reforms that are necessary to improve health care in British Columbia.
pharmacare
Novembre 29, 2002
2:00AM
Octobre 21, 2002
2:00AM
The existence of independent provincial Pharmacare programs and private insurance for prescription drugs is considered by some to be a blot on Canadian medicare. They want these options abolished in favour of National Pharmacare.
Health care costs are rising, and prescription drugs are taking up a larger share of those costs, but the change is a lot less dramatic than people think. Prescription drug costs were 8 percent of total health costs in 1991, and 12 percent in 2001, an average increase of less than half a percentage point a year.
Octobre 4, 2002
2:00AM
In his opinion about reforming Pharmacare on October 3, Victor Vrsnik, of the usually sensible Canadian Taxpayers Federation, resurrected the fantasy of a national pharmacare plan. He supposes that the purchasing power of the federal government would somehow lead to lower prices. This is a surprising statement from the CTF, which has done great work exposing how incompetent the government is at purchasing other goods.