Pharmaceutical industry unfairly profiting

Editor

Soon after the Throne Speech promised universal medication coverage, the drug companies reacted with threats of abandoning Canadian research and development (R&D) if the federal government does restrain the industry’s drug prices.

R&D costs are typically cited by the profitable industry to justify its exorbitant prices and resistance to universal pharmacare coverage.

Yet, according to the 2014 documentary The Culture High, for every $19 dollars spent on marketing new drugs, only $1 goes into R&D!

A new Angus Reid study has found that about 90 percent of Canadians support universal pharmacare coverage.

Also, “over the past year, one-quarter (23%) have decided not to fill a prescription or not to renew one due to cost…”

Not only is medication less affordable, but many low-income outpatients who cannot afford to fill their prescriptions end up back in the hospital system thus costing far more than if their genericbrand medication was covered.

We’re the world’s sole nation that has universal healthcare but no similar coverage of prescribed medication, however necessary. Logic says, we cannot afford to maintain such an absurdity that costs Canadians billions extra annually, both as medication purchasers and taxpayers.

I believe the absence of universal medication coverage best serves the pharmaceutical industry’s profit margin interests.

Undoubtedly its lobbyists in Ottawa are well worth their bloated salaries. Frank Sterle Jr. White Rock, B.C.