Health committee  Thank you very much for—

Health committee  Oh, I took one of you earlier. Thank you very much. Canadian Doctors for Medicare is grateful for this opportunity to present to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health on the development of a national pharmacare program. Canadian Doctors for Medicare was established in 2006.

Finance committee  Just as a comment around the size of the pot, there has been a lot of analysis showing a whole lot of talk around health care using more and more of the budget. Often in reality what's happening is that the overall pot is getting smaller when taxes are reduced, and things like that, so that health care ends up looking like it's taking up more in the budget, but we've actually been fairly stable as a percentage of GDP, especially in recent years.

Finance committee  It's definitely something that needs to be considered. First of all, it's natural that pharmaceutical companies may argue against pharmacare because they do make a lot of money from Canada. We pay far more for our medication than any other country that has a universal health care system.

Finance committee  It's one of the main reasons we talk about it being a comprehensive drug coverage plan. Bulk buying is one piece of it, but the other piece is the evidence and forum decision-making, which is to say, putting together the national formulary or the national list of selected medications that would be part of the national pharmacare.

Finance committee  I am, yes.

Finance committee  Hi. Thank you, everyone, for including me in what is, I'm sure, a long day for all of you. Canadian Doctors for Medicare was created in 2006. We are physicians who are firmly committed to evidence-informed health care policy reform and to our single payer medicare system. Our recent advocacy for action has focused on three specific areas: upholding the Canada Health Act, developing and implementing a new Canada health accord, and improving access to prescription drugs through a national pharmacare program.