Who is standing in the way of achieving pharmacare for all?
Canada finally has a pharmacare law that sets out the framework for providing universal access to medicine to people across the country. Only three provinces and one territory have so far signed a pharmacare deal with the federal government.
With strong support for pharmacare from across the country, who exactly is standing in the way of achieving pharmacare for all? Find out at a research roundtable on the profitization of health care in Canada this October.
The day-long research roundtable at the University of Ottawa on October 23 is being organized by the Canadian Health Coalition and the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics.
The research roundtable will feature a panel with the country’s most prominent researchers on pharmacare. Space is limited and early registrations are encouraged.
Pharmaceutical policy expert Joel Lexchin will deliver a talk entitled, “Trump, Tariffs and Drug Prices & Access: All Trump, All the Time.”
Lexchin will explore how the tariffs imposed and threatened by Donald Trump could affect access to prescription drugs and their prices.
According to Lexchin, “the tariffs that Trump has imposed on Canadian exports will almost certainly drive up unemployment leading to the loss of private drug coverage for hundreds of thousands of Canadians. The result will be more people being unable to afford the medications that they need and more visits to doctors, more hospitalizations and poorer health.”
Lexchin will make the case for “public action in the form of an expanded pharmacare program and a Crown Corporation to manufacture some drugs must be Canada’s response.”
Lexchin has worked as an emergency physician for almost 40 years. He has also taught health policy at York University for 15 years. His two latest books are Private Profits vs Public Policy: The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Canadian State and Doctors in Denial: Why Big Pharma and the Canadian medical profession are too close for comfort.
Preferred Provider Networks (PPNs) are the subject of a talk by Marc-André Gagnon, a professor of political economy at Carleton University, Quinn Grundy from the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto, and Blue Miaoran Dong with the School of Journalism and Communications, Carleton University.
According to the interdisciplinary team of researchers, “PPNs claim to reduce expenses for drug plans. However, in the context of expensive specialty drugs and opaque pricing, their implementation raises critical concerns about potential long-term risks to the health care system that warrant closer examination.”
The researchers will present their analysis of current government oversight of PPNs in Canada and the United States, and relevant legal cases such as the demand for a class action suit against specialty pharmacies by the Association Québécoise des Pharmaciens Propriétaires.
Their findings reveal that “PPNs often distort market incentives through confidential rebate agreements and exclusive patient support programs. These practices undermine the patient-pharmacist relationship, restrict patient autonomy, and exacerbate geographic and financial barriers to care, particularly in underserved regions.”
A trio of Toronto-based physicians and researchers behind the Health, Tech & Society Lab will explore the “increasing links between for-profit primary care, commercial data brokers and big pharma.”
The lab’s latest research identified “pharmaceutical companies as the primary clients of the data brokers, raising concerns about increasing industry influence over clinical decision-making and patient care.”
Presenting for the lab at the research roundtable are Dr. Danyaal Raza, a family physician with Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, Dr. Sheryl Spithoff, a Clinician Scientist at Women’s College Hospital and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, and Brigid Golem, the Research Coordinator at the Health, Tech & Society Lab, and a PhD candidate in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.
Future blog posts will feature other researchers presenting at this year’s research roundtable.
