The other day, I heard an interview on The Current with a British doctor who's working on developing cheap knock-offs of drugs for developing countries. (It's under Ethical Pharmaceuticals if you want to listen.) What really struck me was how this doctor seemed convinced that drug costs are simply not an issue for patients in developed countries. He thought of it more as something that a hospital administrator would have to worry about. The interviewer noticed this too, and asked him about it. He didn't seem to understand what she meant, so she gave the example of the United States. The doctor said he didn't know much about the United States, but he considered the situation there as a one-off, and clearly thought that drug costs weren't a patient issue in the rest of the developed world. You have your indoor plumbing, you have your electricity, you have your drug coverage.
This makes me wonder if our medical coverage in Canada is really as good as we think it is. In my world, everyone knows how much their drugs cost, even those of us with insurance. Drug costs are most definitely the patient's issue here. This makes me think that maybe our medical coverage isn't actually good at all compared with Europe. Maybe we just think our medical coverage is good because we hear about things like this, and we're glad our is good in comparison. Ultimately though, I don't think that's a fruitful attitude. I think if our health coverage doesn't meet our needs, we should openly feel that it's insufficient and lobby for it to be improved, thus raising the bar for everyone. I also think we should be able to readily compare our health care with the rest of the world, not just the US (and the media should help us get to the point where we can do this.) Just because we're not the worst doesn't mean we're good enough.
3 comments:
Hopefully no one ever runs into catastrophic drug costs up here in Canada. Many provinces have a way of ensuring that doesn't happen... for instance, Ontario has the Trillium Drug Plan which sets a limit on how much anyone has to pay based on their income.
That's interesting, thanks. I didn't know there was some government measure to keep our drug costs from reaching infinity, although, running the numbers for my own household, it's still enough to be something to worry about.
What's interesting is my Trillium Drug Plan deductable is lower than the catastrophic drug coverage deductable from the insurance provided through my employer. This means that the catastrophic drug insurance provided by my employer is essentially useless, because government assistance will kick in first.
In Ontario's case, you tell them what your other coverage is and then, when you're at the deductible for the other coverage, Ontario will bill the other company to the max of it's coverage and pay the difference (minus the $2).
When I looked into it, I was surprised that it was so low to be honest. $2200 deductible per year on a household net income of $60,000? That's not bad! It doesn't take much to get to $2200 in perscriptions for two people in a year if there's a chronic problem.
The other thing I like is that the government doesn't limit the income. Making $100,000? Your deductible is $4,000. The more you make, the more your deductible is. It's fair.
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