Health advocates shocked as Carney Liberals back away from pharmacare program

[CdnFox]

Canada healthcare: Some shocked feds won't sign pharma deals

 

They're the only ones. Anyone else could see that this was going to go on the chopping block given our deficits.

Bet those nDP voters are sure glad that jag meet destroyed their party over this (and his pension)

[blackbird]

Many know that another expensive social program would just push Canada deeper into debt.  We are already quite far in debt and Canadians must pay the interest through their taxes.  That means less government revenue available for the various other social programs we already have.  Strange that the NDP lefties can't understand this.  Social programs don't just pay for themselves out of thin air.

Many Canadians already have pharmacare coverage through the companies they work for.  A new government program would throw all that into question and would mean people who can afford to pay for their existing employment based programs would be paying for something everyone else is receiving from government mandate.  How would that be fair or equitable?  It wouldn't.

There is already a government-funded pharmacare program in B.C. that pays for medications when a person reaches a certain cost in a given year.  After that the pharmacare pays the rest.  These days, governments need to show some restraint because big pharma companies are already raking in a fortune for certain medications and there has to some kind of restraint on it. 

Drugstores also get a good cut.  Doctors renew prescriptions every three months and really how much of that is necessary every three months.  There are doctor's fees, drugstore dispensing fees and time and trouble getting prescriptions renewed and filled.  I think some of it is just a ripoff because many drugs are taken for many years so why do they require a renewal every 90 days?  It's a scam.   Governments should really take a close look at that and see if there is some way they can change the system to stop all the unnecessary renewals every 90 days and perhaps put them on an annual renewal system for some drugs.

Edited July 30, 2025 by blackbird

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, blackbird said:

Many know that another expensive social program would just push Canada deeper into debt.  We are already quite far in debt and Canadians must pay the interest through their taxes.  That means less government revenue available for the various other social programs we already have.  Strange that the NDP lefties can't understand this.  Social programs don't just pay for themselves out of thin air.

Many Canadians already have pharmacare coverage through the companies they work for.  A new government program would throw all that into question and would mean people who can afford to pay for their existing employment based programs would be paying for something everyone else is receiving from government mandate.  How would that be fair or equitable?  It wouldn't.

There is already a government-funded pharmacare program in B.C. that pays for medications when a person reaches a certain cost in a given year.  After that the pharmacare pays the rest.  These days, governments need to show some restraint because big pharma companies are already raking in a fortune for certain medications and there has to some kind of restraint on it. 

Drugstores also get a good cut.  Doctors renew prescriptions every three months and really how much of that is necessary every three months.  There are doctor's fees, drugstore dispensing fees and time and trouble getting prescriptions renewed and filled.  I think some of it is just a ripoff because many drugs are taken for many years so why do they require a renewal every 90 days?  It's a scam.   Governments should really take a close look at that and see if there is some way they can change the system to stop all the unnecessary renewals every 90 days and perhaps put them on an annual renewal system for some drugs.

It's true the provinces already covered many of these things in many cases.

For example as you note in British Columbia birth control was already free and diabetic medicine is covered under pharmacare in British Columbia. Lower income people already get their treatments for free. Even if your work doesn't offer medical a person making $75,000 a year in British Columbia still gets most of their medications not just diabetes free of charge after the first $2,000. And people making less haven't even smaller deductible

So the government program really wasn't actually providing anything new for these people.

The whole thing was just a big smoke show to try and look like they were doing the right thing but it was complete bull crap and expensive bull crap at that. So it's no shock that Carney's not excited about continuing to put the bill when he's got a hundred billion dollar deficit to deal with

Edited July 30, 2025 by CdnFox