Thank you very much.
Thank you to the committee for allowing me to appear on behalf of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons and our 225,000 paid members from across the country.
We applaud the government's intention to work with the provinces and the territories to sign the agreement that would provide what is called universal single-payer, first-dollar coverage. We applaud that, and the plan to allocate that funding to the provinces and territories is a goal in improving the cost of the coverage of medicines for a selection of drugs and diabetes drugs.
However, we're very concerned about the federal government's proposal of a single public-payer approach to deliver pharmacare, because we fear that this could crowd out the private payers that currently cover the majority of Canadians, including one in three seniors. CARP believes that this would not be of interest to older Canadians for a number of reasons.
First of all, a single public-payer system would make it harder to access many of the newest and most effective treatments. Public drug plans are notoriously slow in covering new drugs and much more limited in terms of what they offer than private plans. As well, a good example is the list of the diabetes medicines, as has been mentioned before, that the federal government is planning to cover. It's very limited and doesn't include the very latest treatments used by seniors with diabetes.
Second, off-loading all Canadians onto a single public plan could lead to serious disruptions. There were challenges a few years ago when Ontario moved all youth under age 25 to OHIP+, the government-administered plan. During that transition, many Ontario kids lost coverage for medicines that were previously available to them under private plans. A reform of the current drug insurance system could lead to similar challenges with potentially devastating consequences for many older Canadians who rely on their medications and can't afford any disruption in their access.
Third, most Canadians already have coverage for targeted diabetes and contraceptive medicines through private plans. The government's plan to invest $1.5 billion over five years to provide coverage to these Canadians would be a waste of public funds. There are many other areas where additional federal funding could be put to better use, including addressing the challenges of the current system such as the high out-of-pocket expense for medications due to insufficient spending and coverage of medicines by public drug plans. This can be a major financial burden, particularly for seniors, many of whom, of course, are on fixed incomes.
The Canadian Association of Retired Persons surveys our members on a regular basis, and they are telling us that they believe we could build a successful mix of public and private programs to achieve universal coverage through a targeted approach that focuses on those most in need, the uninsured, the under-insured and those facing affordability challenges. We've already seen this model successfully implemented with the federal government funding agreement with Prince Edward Island. The province provided the provincial funding to help expand the number of drugs it covers and to reduce out-of-pocket costs for island residents. This approach, which builds on existing pharmacare programs, will likely be easier and quicker to implement than significantly reforming the current system.
Canadian seniors want to see timely results that make a real, positive difference in how they access medicines and ultimately manage their health conditions in order to enjoy longer and better lives.
Thank you for this opportunity.