3.5 Million Afford Their Prescriptions Canadians
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A new NAFTA? Labour law reforms Unions celebrate three key 7 Why you should care 8 improving lives 10 wins for Canadians Labour Day 2017 A time to celebrate past accomplishments and focus on future gains for Canadian workers A PEPPER MEDIA INITIATIVE IN CO-OPERATION WITH THE CANADIAN LABOUR CONGRESS Thursday, August 31, 2017 3.5 MILLION CANADIANS CAN’T AFFORD THEIR PRESCRIPTIONS CANADA’S UNIONS HAVE A PLAN. PAGES 2, 4, 6 This sponsored feature produced by PepperMedia.ca Canada’s unions are working to win a universal prescription drug plan Pharmacare: A plan for everyone. that covers all Canadians regardless of income, age or where they live. Learn more at aplanforeveryone.ca 2 Thursday, August 31 , 2017 A PEPPER MEDIA INITIATIVE IN CO-OPERATION WITH THE CANADIAN LABOUR CONGRESS Labour Day 2017 Visit aplanforeveryone.ca to learn more. OPINION Pharmacare: We need a plan for everyone by Hassan Yussuff, Canadian Labour Congress President here was a moment in Wind- sor, Ontario, years ago, that changed the way I look at prescription drug coverage forever. I was told about a Tworker who was hospitalized when his employer went bankrupt. Lying in his hospital bed, he was given notice that his health benefits would be terminated in 30 days. Just like that, he was plunged into A federal investment of $1 billion a year will mean Canadians save $7.3 billion a year on the medications they need, the Canadian a new insecure reality of being unable to Labour Congress says. ISTOCKPHOTO.COM afford the medications he needed. It’s the same reality 3.5 million Canadians face Canadians aren’t just for better health insurance coverage cent of their population is covered. There, today, thanks to our patchwork, ineffective for our members, but better public cover- a year’s supply of the anti-cholesterol drug prescription drug system. benefiting from the age for everyone. Lipitor costs just $15 a year. In Canada, it In Canada today, an estimated Canadians aren’t benefiting from the costs $811. 8.4 million working people do not have current system. The only current system. The only ones who do It’s time for Canada to learn from other employer-based health benefits. That ones who do benefit benefit are pharmaceutical companies, countries’ successes and join the 21st century means many Canadians are splitting pills, which can charge higher prices for com- by combining our population’s purchasing skipping days to stretch their prescrip- are pharmaceutical monly used drugs because they are selling power under one plan. An annual invest- tions, or not taking the medications they to many buyers; and private insurance ment of $1 billion by the federal government need at all, due to the unreasonable out- companies, which can companies, which charge employers, will mean Canadians save $7.3 billion a year of-pocket costs. charge higher prices for unions and workers to administer private on the medications they need. Canada is the only developed country drug insurance plans. Canadians already know this is the in the world with universal health care commonly used drugs It just isn’t working. Canadians working right move: a 2015 Angus Reid poll found that does not include prescription drugs. because they are selling to in part-time, low-wage, precarious jobs that 91 per cent of Canadians believe our Instead, our multi-payer system has re- are less likely to have employer health public health care system should include sulted in the second-highest prescription many buyers; and private benefits, which means young workers and a universal prescription drug plan. Several drug costs in the world next to the United women are less likely to be covered for national health care commissions have States. Working Canadians and their fami- insurance companies, prescription drugs. Even Canadians who recommended the same, along with the lies feel the hit every single day. which charge employers, do have coverage through work run into Canadian Medical Association, Canadian Nobody should be forced to choose trouble because of ever-increasing co-pay- Federation of Nurses Unions, Canadian between paying for groceries and paying unions and workers to ments and deductibles. Doctors for Medicare, the Federation of for their prescriptions. That’s why Canada’s This should be unacceptable in a Canadian Municipalities, and many more. unions are marking Labour Day with a administer private drug country like Canada. In our country, it’s This Labour Day, Canada’s unions are re- campaign to win a universal drug plan for insurance plans. supposed to be simple – if you’re sick, newing our commitment to public health all Canadians. you should get treatment, regardless of care by making pharmacare our top prior- Unions have worked for better health where you live or how much you make. If ity. We’re bringing together local unions care for decades because it’s an issue that you have a health card, you should have and workers with health care advocates in affects all working people. Unions were prescription drug coverage. communities across the country to launch there in the 1960s as Tommy Douglas es- Many other countries have already got our pharmacare campaign. Join us, and tablished Medicare in Saskatchewan, and it right. Look at New Zealand, where a together we can win a universal prescrip- saw it expand to the rest of Canada. Ever public authority negotiates drug prices tion drug plan for all Canadians, regardless since then, we’ve continued to push, not on behalf of the entire country — 100 per of age, geography or income. n 3.5 million Canadians can’t afford to fill their prescriptions. Many are splitting their pills or skipping days to stretch the prescriptions they do fill. Nobody should be forced to choose between paying for groceries and paying for the medication they need. That’s why we’re working to win a universal prescription drug plan that covers all Canadians regardless of their income, age or where they live. Join our call for a universal prescription drug plan at aplanforeveryone.ca 4 Thursday, August 31, 2017 A PEPPER MEDIA INITIATIVE IN CO-OPERATION WITH THE CANADIAN LABOUR CONGRESS Labour Day 2017 Visit aplanforeveryone.ca to learn more. HUMAN COSTS Health care experts weigh in on the need for prescription drug coverage urses, physicians and other afford inhalers costing approximately $70 BY THE NUMBERS is uneven access to prescription drugs. health professionals have for three months’ treatment led to a stay in Beyond the inequities, this system is first-hand knowledge of the hospital costing about $1,000 a day.” inefficient and expensive; Canada has the human cost of not having This story is not unusual — one in The case for universal second-highest prescription drug costs in universal prescription drug 10 Canadians cannot afford to fill their drug coverage the world after the United States. Ncoverage in Canada. Every day, they see prescriptions. “If you are a young worker, if “We need federal leadership to imple- the harm that comes from patients not you are a lower-income family, you are es- ment pharmacare, and we need action being able to afford the medications they pecially vulnerable,” she says. “It shouldn’t now,” says the CFNU president. “With a uni- need. be this way. We are the only country with 8.4 million versal plan, national bulk buying to lower ESTIMATED NUMBER OF WORKING The president of the Canadian Federa- a universal public health care system that drug prices and one evidence-based drug tion of Nurses Unions (CFNU), Linda Silas, does not provide universal coverage for CANADIANS WHO HAVE NO formulary for the whole country, we can remembers hearing from one nurse about prescription medicines.” PRESCRIPTION DRUG COVERAGE save billions of dollars a year.” a family that couldn’t afford the inhalers The CFNU and other national organi- Numerous studies have put the eco- their child needed for asthma. The nurse zations, including the Canadian Labour nomics in perspective, estimating that gave them samples to get them by until Congress, are intensifying their calls for an annual investment of $1 billion by the their next appointment, but making it to a national, universal prescription drug 3.5 million federal government will mean Canadians that appointment meant missing a day’s plan for all Canadians, to complete what NUMBER OF CANADIANS save $7.3 billion a year on the medications pay, so the family didn’t get more samples. is often called “the unfinished business of WHO CANNOT AFFORD TO FILL they need. The child’s asthma got worse, resulting in Medicare.” THEIR PRESCRIPTIONS Dr. Danyaal Raza is a family physician at a days-long stay in hospital. Our country’s complex, patchwork St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and the “Lack of drug coverage hurts patients system of prescription drug funding, board chair of Canadian Doctors for Medi- and it hurts the entire health care system,” with widely varying levels of public and care, another organization advocating for says Silas. “For this child, not being able to private insurance coverage, means there a universal prescription drug plan. Dr. Raza points out that advances in pre- scription medications make it possible for people with chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes to live healthier AVERAGE COST OF lives. These benefits may be lost, he says, THE CHOLESTEROL DRUG if people face difficult choices because of finances. LIPITOR PER YEAR: “When I prescribe a medication to treat diabetes and keep a patient’s sugars under control, I shudder to think they may $811 $15 have to buy cheaper, less healthy food to IN CANADA IN NEW ZEALAND afford what’s been written on the prescrip- (which DOES NOT (which HAS tion pad,” Dr.