Don’t let cynicism subvert success
Re Prescriptions free for those 24 and under, April 28 So often, whenever a government includes in its budget a social program that has been needed on humanitarian grounds and/or to effect greater social cohesion, the measure is met with cynicism: it is solely motivated by politics — an election is coming or someone wants some reflected glory. But if one examines the history of a party’s aspirations, it is clear that ideas that could contribute to the common good are the prime drivers of political activism. Most people don’t run for the unpredictability of public office if they are not highly motivated.
Pharmacare is an idea that has been contemplated and studied for decades. It was a subject of discussion in the 1997 Final Report of the National Forum on Health; by the Liberals in the 1997 campaign; in the 2002 Romanow Royal Commission Report; at the 2004 First Ministers’ Meeting for a 10-year Plan to Strengthen Healthcare; in a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative in 2010; in a 2013 report for the C. D. Howe Institute and in a 2014 study for the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. And this list is far from complete.
There was the very impressive report by Prof. Marc-André Gagnon of Carleton University, called “The Economic Case for Uni- versal Pharmacare.” Pharmacare has been studied to death and many highly qualified people have cared enough about the public good that they have devoted themselves to this cause.
In the Dec. 16, 2014, issue of the Toronto Star, Dr. Eric Hoskins, Ontario’s minister of health, wrote an excellent boileddown version of his reasons why we need a universal pharmacare program. It was entitled “Time to put pharmacare back on national agenda.”
In 2015, he convened a roundtable of some premiers in Toronto to try to get pharmacare back on the national agenda.
I don’t think a pharmacare plan for under-25-year-olds is an election ploy. We shouldn’t be stingy with giving credit when it is due. M. P. Gardner, Burlington, Ont.