Prescription Drug Costs Soaring

On June 22, the Canadian Institute for Health Information released figures that show that spending by Canadians on prescription and non-prescription drugs in 2003 was $19.6 billion, an 8.1 percent increase over 2002. According to the Institute, 81 percent of the $19.6 billion was spent on prescription drugs, with 19 percent spent on non-prescription drugs.

Twenty years ago, Canadians spent an average of $147 per person on drugs; as of last year, that number had climbed to $620. Prescription drug costs, according to the Institute, were paid for by government drug programs 47 percent of the time. Drug costs as a percentage of health care costs in Canada are among the highest in the world - higher only in Japan, France and Hungary - with drugs accounting for 16.2 percent of health care costs of $121.4 billion.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper has made introducing a national pharmacare program one of the planks of his health care platform and Liberal leader Paul Martin's team have been quick to pledge a similar undertaking. Whatever the final form, the aim of such a program would be to shift drug costs now covered by private insurers to the federal and provincial governments, a savings of billions for the insurance industry each year. The move would also represent a boon for the pharmaceutical monopolies, which would be able to increase their market share through drug coverage for the millions of Canadians with no private insurance who do not qualify for existing pharmacare programs - mainly the working poor and their families. Phamacare programs in most provinces currently provide coverage only to people on social assistance and senior citizens living on fixed incomes.