One of the things is that if we move to a system that is truly national, universal and single-payer, Canadians will have increased access to medicines from coast to coast. We can use national procurement contracts to get better prices for medicines. We can use those same contracts to make sure manufacturers guarantee the supply of medicines when Canadians need them and when we know shortages are all too common internationally.
It's true that if the federal government were to fund these first stages of contraception and diabetes treatments and leverage the purchasing power nationally to get the average price we find in comparative countries, that system might actually cost more than the PBO has estimated, but it would deliver savings to the provinces and territories on the order of about $1.3 billion per year—