National drug plan could save billions, research says

WATCH ABOVE: 16×9’s “Cost of Cancer”

For most Canadians, the country’s universal health care is a source of pride.

But Canada doesn’t have a national drug coverage plan.

“Every single country with universal coverage for healthcare provides universal coverage for prescription drugs, except for Canada.”

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WATCH BELOW: Steve Morgan talks about how Canada compares to other countries around the world with a similar healthcare system.

That’s Steve Morgan. He is a professor at the UBC Centre for Health Services and Policy Research and the lead author of a new study by the Canadian Medical Association Journal looking at the cost of a universal drug plan.

READ MORE: Some Canadian patients struggling to pay for cancer treatments

“People might argue that it might be too expensive to have universal pharmacare as it is sometimes referred to, it’s actually quite the contrary,” explains Morgan, “the analysis that we did showed that you could have 7.3 billion dollars worth of savings.”

WATCH BELOW: Steve Morgan discusses the benefits of having a universal drug plan in Canada and the ability to bargain better drug prices from manufacturers.

The study suggests that, under a universal system, total spending on prescription medication in Canada could drop an estimated 32% because the government would have the ability to negotiate better drug prices from manufacturers.

“It would literally save us billions of dollars as a country because we would use the purchasing power as a single payer in order to get better prices on prescription drugs,” says Morgan.

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But more than that, a move to a universal drug system could mean the difference between life and death for patients suffering from chronic diseases, including cancer.

WATCH BELOW: Steve Morgan explains the consequences for patients who aren’t able to pay for their prescription drugs.

Last fall, 16×9 investigated the cost of having cancer in Canada. We found that many cancer patients, whose treatment comes in the form of a pill, are struggling to cover the price tag of treatment and were rationing out their dosages, on the verge of bankruptcy and even stopping taking their drugs.

“This is something that should be a bit of a national embarrassment when you allow there to be significant financial burden on people who are taking medicines that are deemed to be cost effective but for which they are not offered public coverage. That’s problematic,” says Morgan.

To learn more, watch an encore presentation of “Cost of Cancer” Saturday, March 21st, 2015 at 7:00p.m.