Thank you to our witnesses here today.
I've been listening quite closely. I want to point out the wisdom of Dr. Hoffman when she said that this is a complicated thing. At the end of the day, this is about the Canadian health care system. We're looking at the patient. What is the appropriate treatment for that patient and what kind of outcome are we getting?
I think Brent was saying seniors were taking five or more drugs and that almost 40% were using inappropriate medication, and that concerns me because, when the government starts to take a look at national pharmacare, it is a lot of money, and there are a lot of patients who may be treated inappropriately. If we're looking at some simple number such as $10 billion, and 40% is inappropriate, that's $4 billion that the Canadian taxpayer may be picking up for treatment that is not effective and not appropriate for the client.
I am concerned about market distortion because we may end up favouring one modality or one drug over another. My background is that I'm a chiropractor. I didn't prescribe, but I certainly had a lot of patients who, for some reason, did better on one drug versus another. It might have been the Rx&D drug versus the generic. Sometimes it's not a one-size-fits-all for different patients. I'm concerned about distortion of the market and choice for patients and I was wondering if you have done any cost-benefit analysis about job losses if we go towards one system.
I know in Ontario years ago the NDP government wanted to do universal auto insurance through the government. They abandoned it because it would have cost a lot of jobs and would have taken away choices for clients. With this type of initiative going forward, would there be jobs lost, say, in the private sector if we moved towards one model, like Dr. Hoffman said, versus the other model? What about choices for patients for a medication that may be better suited for that individual patient?
Brent, do you have those numbers, or has anybody done it?