Drug prices aren’t a big problem, but Ottawa’s trying to control the market anyway via fpcomment
The federal government is changing regulatory guidelines used by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board to force lower prices for new drugs. At the same time, Ottawa is considering ways to implement national pharmacare, which the federal Liberals are expected to announce as part of their upcoming budget. The official justification for both is the same: the cost of pharmaceuticals.
The Canadian Health Policy Institute used data from the PMPRB, the Canadian Institute for Health Information , and Statistics Canada to identify the direct cost of patented drugs and to assess affordability relative to GDP and other health-care costs. CIHI’s “drugs” expenditures are often falsely equated with manufacturers’ sales of patented drugs, and then cited as a reason to justify government intervention to control prices. But actual costs attributable directly to patented drugs are only a fraction of CIHI’s total published “drugs” costs.
Public drug plan spending on the direct costs of patented drugs at factory list prices was $7.0 billion in 2017, representing only 4.2 per cent of the $165.7 billion in total health spending by federal, provincial and territorial governments that year. Gross sales of patented drugs were the same percentage of government health costs in 2017 as in 2000 , an 18-year period of zero average annual growth relative to total government health expenditure.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Convicted Mexican drug lord El Chapo seeks new trial after juror admits to breaking rulesOne of the jurors who convicted him told Vice News that jurors read media about the case despite the judge’s instructions not to, a lawyer for Guzman said in a court filing on Friday
Read more »
Friends seek to clear Houston couple killed in drug raidWhen police fatally shot a couple during a raid of their home in a working-class Houston neighbourhood, friends and family members angrily dismissed allegations that the two were selling heroin and had fired on officers while defending an illicit business.
Read more »
Liberals face pressure to act on safer drug supply amid opioid-related deathsThe Trudeau government is facing pressure to make safer opioids available to people who use street drugs as overdose deaths continue to increase.
Read more »
Trudeau government pressed to act on safer drug supply amid opioid crisisPublic-health advocates and at least one Toronto Liberal MP, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, are pushing for the issue of supply to be looked at
Read more »