Tens of thousands urge B.C. to drop deductibles for diabetes drugs

Every time Joshua Timm heads to the pharmacy to pick up the medication and equipment that keep him alive, he’s hit with anxiety.

“I just see the lump sum payment for myself when I go to pick it up, and I kind of panic,” the 38-year-old from Pitt Meadows told Global News.

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Timm is one of an estimated 30,000 British Columbians who live with Type-1 diabetes.

He relies on daily medication, insulin pumps and an artificial pancreas to regulate his blood sugar and live a normal life.

But even with PharmaCare coverage and benefits from his job, he says he has a hard time paying for it all.

“I am still struggling, even with benefits for work, because not all of my devices are covered,” he said.

“They should totally consider covering more for diabetics, it’s not much of a difference (from cancer or other serious illnesses), it’s still a debilitating disease.”

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Timm isn’t alone in his appeal to the province.

More than 26,000 people have signed a BC Diabetes Foundation petition calling on B.C. to remove PharmaCare deductibles for all diabetes drugs and devices.

According to the foundation, more than 450,000 British Columbians live with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, including the tens of thousands with Type 1 Diabetes, where their life-sustaining medication is not an option.

PharmaCare offers full coverage for British Columbians on social assistance, but others living with the disease are required to pay a deductible based on their income before they get anything back.

It can take months of out-of-pocket expenses to reach the full coverage — which can equate to thousands of dollars.

The medication and medical devices include insulin, continuous glucose monitors (CGM) and insulin pumps.

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To put that into context, the average family deductible for British Columbians is $2,500 a year. To reach Pharmacare subsidies, a family must spend $25 a day for 100 days to receive 70 per cent coverage.

They then have to spend $7.50 per day for another 113 days before they get 100 per cent coverage. The total time to get to 100 per cent Pharmacare coverage is 213 days of out-of-pocket expenses.

“(The cost) is too much. The standard of care in 2023 is to use insulin, an insulin pump and a CGM device and that costs $25 a day — at least half of my patients can’t afford it,” said BC Diabetes founder and medical director Dr. Tom Elliott said.

“If you’ve got cancer, if you’ve got HIV hepatitis C transplant psychiatric illness, the government pays for all your medications. But if you’ve got type one diabetes, they don’t. It’s not fair.”

Asked about the petition Thursday, B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix was non-committal.

“We have the best program in Canada for people with Type-1 diabetes,” he said.

“We know people want us to do more and more. And of course we are listening to them.”

Timm said help from the province would go a long way towards reducing an unnecessary financial stress that’s piled on top of an already stressful medical condition.

“Fust one big weight coming off my shoulders,” he said.