Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak on the subject of national pharmacare.
I would like to inform the House about the government's plans with respect to a national pharmacare program. The National Forum on Health pointed out that Canadians were fortunate to have a world class health care system. Medicare, as we know it, gives universal access to medically necessary hospital services without financial barriers. This system has served us well over the last number of years both in terms of the health of the population and the competitiveness of the Canadian economy.
The national forum told us that we should preserve what we have. It also told us that in order to preserve it we should consider doing a number of things. One of those things was expanding medicare to include other medically necessary services such as home care and drugs.
The federal government intends to pursue the examination of the future directions recommended by the national health forum to serve Canadians. As outlined in the speech from the throne on home care we said that we would take measures to support Canadians by responding to the expanding needs for home care and community care. We will develop a national plan, timetable and fiscal framework for providing Canadians with better access to medically necessary drugs.
This means the federal government recognizes that our country would be better served with an ideal pharmacare and drug system. We can do better with respect to the services provided. We can do better with respect to the use of prescription drugs, compliance and prescribing. We can do better with respect to integrating the health care system and allocating resources among drug therapy, hospital therapy and medical therapy.
Medically necessary prescription medicines are a vital element of health care. They are of relative importance compared with other elements of health care.