B.C. hopes for action on national pharmacare plan

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix is hopeful the federal government's creation of an advisory council on options to proceed with anational pharmacare program leads to concrete action.

"We would like to get to work right away. We would have liked to have seen money in this budget to get to work right away from the federal government. But theircommitmentto move forward you have to view positively and you have to get on with it," he said.

Dix saidit wasdisappointing there was no money in the federal budget to get started, contrasting its approach with the $105 million over three years the B.C. government has spent to eliminate or reduce prescription drug deductibles for low-income earners.

"It's one of the most progressive steps in Canada inpharmacarein a long time," he said.

"The key issue for us is coverage. Ensuring people who need prescription drugs can get them. We have the outlines of thesystemhere, but if the federal government wanted to step up with supports for that, we'd be supportive of that."

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Experts mixed on whether it will proceed

Canadians currently pay among the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world, and it'sestimated about700,000 Canadiansskip purchases of food to pay for prescription medications.

ButAlan Cassels, a pharmacarepolicy researcher at UVic, is somewhat skeptical whether the federal government's committee, which has no dollars attached to it, will be able to push a national plan forward.

"I attended the national-approach-to-pharmacare conferencein 1998," he said.

"It's easy to be cynical, because we've seen this zombie rise from the grave in the past."

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Casselssays that unless it's a universal system fully overseen by the federal government, the biggest challenge will be getting all the provinces to agree on a plan.

"The provinces have to switch from what we have now to a different program. B.C. pharmacare is a good model, I think, for a national model, much different than Quebec. But if you were to ask health-decision makers 'we want you to adopt a system closer to Quebec,' they'd say forget it," he said.

Steve Morgan, aprofessor of health policy at the University of British Columbia, saidhe's still pleased the government is starting a discussion on whether it should cover the cost of pharmaceutical drugs.

"This is referred to as an advisory council on the implementation of nationalpharmacare, not an advisory council on whether Canada should have nationalpharmacare," saidMorgan, who heads up Canada's Pharmaceutical Policy Research Collaboration.

Morgan says he'd love to see the Liberals roll out a pharmacare program in time for next year's budget but admitsthe party could make this an issue heading into the next election.

With files from Megan Thomas and Jesse Johnston