Thank you very much, Chairperson.
Thank you to our guests who are appearing today. I know that each of you is considered a real expert in your field. You do a lot of research and I think you've given us a lot of really illuminating information.
I do find it ironic that as Canadians we're so proud of our health care system, yet when we look at the facts and see how the costs are going up, we don't seem to be tackling what I think Dr. Morgan said are some of the root causes of the cost drivers. For example, the cost of drugs is going up so high, yet we don't seem to be able to rein that in and have the systems in place to deal with it. I think your testimony today is very important in helping us, one, understand the problem and, two, giving us some ideas about what we need to do. I'd like to pursue that.
Dr. Gagnon, I know that one of the programs you've proposed is something called “reference pricing”, similar to what we see in New Zealand. I wonder if you could just explain it for us, because I think that once we understand what the problem is, the next thing is, what should we be doing about it? There are models out there, as you've said. What is the reference pricing and why is it a better system?
Also, Dr. Rachlis, at the end of your presentation, you talked about how the federal government, at a minimum, needs to provide a structured support. I wonder if you would be able to elaborate on that. When we look at the health accord from 2004, we can see that a lot of commitments were made around drug coverage and innovation, yet that seems to have fallen flat. How do we pick up the pieces here? How do we focus on this federal role?
Finally, Dr. Morgan, first of all, congratulations on a very successful conference that was held in Vancouver just recently on this whole question. When you say that we should increase generic availability and that we need a national strategy, how do you envision that coming about? It seems to me that it's critical that the federal government be involved in that. I just wonder what ideas you have.
Those are the questions I have for the three witnesses.