NDP asks Liberals to start covering some medicines as parties negotiate pharmacare
Introduction of pharmacare legislation a key plank in the Liberal-NDP supply-and-confidence deal
New Democrats have asked the Liberals to begin covering a handful of essential medicines as negotiations continue behind the scenes on developing a pharmacare system.
A senior NDP source not authorized to speak publicly told CBC that the NDP has asked the Liberals to not just deliver pharmacare legislation but to also begin covering several life-saving drugs for conditions like diabetes.
The senior NDP source, who is close to the negotiations, said the Liberals have agreed to cover fewer than five drugs. Health Minister Mark Holland's office would not confirm that report.
The NDP source said the coverage is expected to begin sooner rather than later but could not say precisely when.
Under the NDP-Liberal supply-and-confidence agreement — which sees the NDP support the minority Liberal government on confidence votes in exchange for movement on New Democrats' policy priorities — Canada was supposed to see legislation outlining the principles of pharmacare and a plan to start covering some drugs by 2025.
According to the wording of that agreement, the government would not need "to develop a national formulary of essential medicines and bulk purchasing plan by the end of the agreement."
Speaking to reporters, NDP health critic Don Davies would not say whether the Liberals and NDP are discussing fast-tracking the coverage of some drugs. CBC asked Davies whether he was expecting the Liberals' 2024 budget to contain new spending on pharmacare.
"Not necessarily," he replied.
Davies said the NDP's primary focus is on developing a legislative framework for pharmacare.
"We're not talking about an expenditure of money for several years down the road," he told reporters during a break at the NDP caucus retreat in Edmonton on Thursday.
"What we're focusing on now is we're battling for the proper way to deliver prescription medication to Canadians, and that's a public system."
New Democrats and Liberals have set a new deadline of March 1 for tabling pharmacare legislation. Davies said he expects to meet next week with Holland when Parliament returns.
The senior NDP source said one key sticking point has been disputes over what the parties actually mean by pharmacare.
NDP pushing for universal system
While the agreement the Liberals and the NDP signed does not define pharmacare, New Democrats have insisted on a universal system that is publicly delivered and administered, with the federal government as the single payer.
Speaking at a town hall event in Edmonton Tuesday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh described the negotiations with the Liberals.
"Don (Davies) has described working with the Liberals as like wrestling eels that are soaked in oil," Singh told the audience, which earned him some chuckles. "They are just slimy. They break their promises. They say one thing and they try to get out of it."
Singh said the NDP wants a pharmacare plan that is there for workers and families. He claimed the Liberals want a plan that pleases the pharmaceutical industry and "big insurance."
The head of an association that represents the insurance industry warns against adopting the NDP's preferred model.
"A single-payer program will spend unnecessary billions to disrupt existing workplace health benefit plans that are already making a larger number of prescription drugs more affordable for millions," said Stephen Frank, president and CEO of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, in a previous statement.
One of Canada's leading experts on pharmacare systems, the University of British Columbia's Steve Morgan, said implementing pharmacare would lower the cost of drugs for Canadians and hospitals through the bulk purchasing power of a single price negotiator and purchaser.
"[It's] the only system that we know [of] that's able to balance the extraordinary market power that pharmaceutical manufacturers wield around the entire globe with strong purchasing power created by some kind of national agency," Morgan said.
At the Liberal cabinet retreat on Monday, Holland told reporters that the government is operating in a "restrained fiscal environment" and the "ambition has to be tempered."
A group that studied the implementation of a national pharmacare program, led by former Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins, urged Canada to implement universal, single-payer public pharmacare.
Their report estimated such a program would cost the federal government $15.3 billion annually, but Canada would save $5 billion on prescription drug spending.
The NDP source said the party is not calling for the government to adopt a universal, single-payer pharmacare system immediately but to take an incremental approach that ramps up over time.
That's basically the way medicare was rolled out across the country. In 1957, Ottawa first offered to cover hospital visits, following in the footsteps of the Saskatchewan government. Canadians still needed to pay for physician visits.
The Lester Pearson government introduced the Medical Care Act in 1966, offering to share the costs of physician services. It wasn't until 1972 that all provinces and territories had universal public insurance for physician services.
Decades later, though, Canada is the only developed nation in the world with a publicly funded universal system that does not include prescription drugs.
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