Being from an organization that's focused on the consumer health product side, I can't say that we have put a lot of our policy emphasis on the design of pharmacare programs themselves. I'm afraid I'm going to return again to the idea of lowering barriers to the options outside the pharmacare approach and how that can free up space for the design of a system that is going to meet the needs of Canadians. We've heard repeatedly that there are Canadians who are unable to afford the medicines they need. That is a resource issue.
In terms of the design, some jurisdictions have taken the approach of co-payments that are roughly equivalent to the OTC equivalent. The only issue with that is that it is going to vary by patient. If we're going to take the truly patient-centred approach, we have to worry that what might be a trivial co-payment for some Canadians isn't for others.
I think you have better expertise that has visited the committee that could speak to that.
The focus that we return to is ensuring that there aren't needless barriers to the self-care option. There's a well there. From the research we've done, we know that the percentage of Canadians who really prefer to manage it themselves is quite high: 77% is the most recent finding we've had. It's consistently in that range. What's really interesting, with the change in the research over the last ten years or so, is that we're hearing more and more from Canadians that they're conscious of the need to be responsible with their use of health care resources, not just what's coming out of their pockets, but their use of the system. I think that's another consideration as well.