Striking postal workers unable to pay for their medicine furthers the case for pharmacare
Since the postal workers’ strike began, Canada Post has suspended all 55,000 workers’ medical benefits including those of Marc Caron. His family is now paying $2,000 a day for his cancer treatment, according to CBC.
Critics such as Jules Côté are calling this a form of strike-breaking.
Since the postal workers' strike began, Canada Post has suspended all 55,000 workers' medical benefits including Marc Caron. His family is now paying $2k a day for his cancer treatment. This is a form of strike-breaking.https://t.co/44Xh6dHEjB
— Jules Côté (@julescotendp) December 2, 2024
Montréal-based independent media outlet, The North Star, reports other cases of postal workers having trouble covering the costs of their medication, including a worker who didn’t wish to be named for fear of reprisals they are calling “Sylvie”, who has Stage 4 cancer.
The North Star says her oncologists were able to work out an arrangement to have her medication covered by the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ), the provincial public health care program.
She is quoted as saying, “You know, I was proud when I was hired at the post office. Now, it’s… I’m ashamed. I have tremendous support from my colleagues. But I felt abandoned by Canada Post, like others who are sick.”
Quebec law requires employers to maintain group insurance coverage for at least 30 days after the start of a strike. In addition, insurers must allow workers to convert their group plan to an individual plan after those 30 days. But Canada Post is under federal jurisdiction.
Supporters of pharmacare have long proposed that employers would benefit from it
In his final report on pharmacare, that came out in 2019, considered the gold standard on the issue, Dr. Eric Hoskins says, “National pharmacare will provide businesses with much-needed relief from the high and growing cost of prescription drug insurance. Business owners will no longer have to worry about whether they can afford private drug coverage for their hardworking employees.”
The report also says national pharmacare means workers and businesses would no longer have to pay for expensive prescription drug coverage. The average business owner who provides drug benefits would save over $750 annually per employee. The average worker with workplace drug benefits would save over $100 per year in plan premiums. In addition, employees who pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per year in co-payments, co-insurance or deductibles for themselves and their families would never pay more than $100 per household per year. No more coinsurance. No more annual or lifetime limits.
Professor Marc-André Gagnon of Carleton University is a long-time proponent of pharmacare. In the International Journal of Health Policy Management, he argues, “For the working population, access to medicines is still organized as privileges offered by employers to their employees. Universal pharmacare would not only provide better access to needed prescription drugs, but also eliminate waste, ensure value-for-money and help improve drug safety and appropriate prescribing.”
Strikers and locked out workers need pharmacare
The 55,000 Canada Post workers on strike since November 15, in the first workplace-wide postal strike in over 40 years, have all had their private medical insurance cut off by their employer.
Prior to this strike, postal workers went out on rotating strikes such as the one in 2018 which had less of an impact on their private workplace drug and health coverage.
The annual cost of the extended health care plan – which includes drugs, is about $150 million. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) pays 5 per cent of the premium costs. Employers pay for the insurance as part of the workplace benefit package, which could be viewed as a form of renumeration. Unions could cover those costs but cannot afford them.
Union members were asked to be mindful of the likelihood that bosses would cut them off and were in this note to members in October: “Many members and their dependents are on prescription drugs commonly known as maintenance drugs or long-term medications. These are drugs you may take on a regular basis to treat conditions such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes.”
The note goes on to say the collective agreement could expire as of November 3, 2024 and if that were to happen, the workers would not be guaranteed coverage under the Drug Plan. Members would then have to pay 100 per cent of the cost of any prescription.
Members were advised to ask their doctor for a prescription that provided a three-month supply of their drugs.
The union says Canada Post is also playing hard ball by laying off striking postal workers as a “scare tactic.”
In a statement to the Toronto Star, Canada Post confirmed that there are layoffs but said they are temporary.
Larry Savage, a professor of labour studies at Brock University, called layoffs “a very aggressive move by Canada Post that seem designed to scare union members into abandoning their strike.”
“I think as we inch closer to the holiday season,” Savage told the Toronto Star, “government intervention becomes more and more likely.”
A key issue in bargaining has been a push to expand parcel deliveries into the weekend, but the union and Canada Post are at odds over how to make it work.
Canada Post has been struggling to compete with other delivery providers and posted a $315 million loss before tax in its third quarter, and has pitched weekend deliveries as a way to boost revenue.
