Heart & Stroke, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) have teamed up to raise the urgency of a universal, public, single-payer pharmacare program.
"Canada is the only country in the world with universal health care that does not provide universal pharmacare, leaving 7.5 million Canadians with insufficient or no drug coverage," said Doug Roth, CEO, Heart & Stroke. "We know that some groups are more affected than others – including racialized Canadians and women. Many people are forced to make difficult decisions by cutting spending on food and heat to pay for the prescriptions their families need for their health."
Groups start online campaign for pharmacare
The three groups are encouraging Canadians to send a letter to Ottawa, urging it to take immediate action on implementing a national, universal pharmacare plan through its online campaign at heartandstroke.ca/pharmacare.
"COVID-19 has resulted in more people losing their jobs and consequently losing their benefits. In fact Canadians are twice as likely to have lost prescription drug coverage as to have gained it over the past year," said Hassan Yussuff, president of the CLC. “Now more than ever, Canada needs universal single-payer pharmacare."
Many Canadians do not fill prescriptions because of cost
The three organizations note that one in four Canadian households has difficulty filling needed prescriptions and three million Canadians do not fill their prescriptions because they can’t afford them.
The prohibitive cost of prescription drugs contributes to the premature death of about 1,000 working-age Canadians each year from heart disease and diabetes alone, but a universal pharmacare plan would reduce total spending on prescription drugs in Canada by $5 billion annually, said the groups.
The three groups also said Canada's patchwork of more than 100 public and 100,000 private drug plans is one of the most expensive in the world.
