Pharmacare would help all

Re: A pharmacare placebo for no real problem, Trevin Stratton, Feb. 6

Nurses find it astonishing that a representative of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) would argue against a single-payer national pharmacare system. After all, most of the CCC’s members would benefit from such a program because it would significantly reduce the health-insurance payments they make for their employees.

Canada is the only developed country with a universal health-care system that lacks a pharmacare program. As a result, Canada has some of the highest drug prices in the developed world. We also waste large amounts of money on the inefficiencies of a multi-payer system.

Trevin Stratton cites a recent study by Abacus Data. What he doesn’t say is that the poll was conducted on behalf of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association — an organization that benefits from leaving things as they are. The poll’s finding that less than one per cent of Canadians do not take medications as prescribed because of cost flies in the face of other evidence published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that one in 10 Canadians don’t take their drugs as prescribed because of cost.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce would do well to heed the advice of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, which studied the costs and benefits of pharmacare and concluded it was far better to go with a universal pharmacare program.