Health committee  I think it is accepted by everyone that the public plans are more restrictive than the private plans. If you're telling me that under the public plans people get more access to drugs and under the private plans they get less, that's totally inconsistent with everything I've heard

Health committee  Well, we don't think that's a good idea. First of all, it would be a significant cost that the governments would have to cover on day one. As Mr. Frank has told you, we estimate that to be about $14 billion. How is that going to be paid for? Second, it would be the end of offer

Health committee  What I have stated many times is that what's not working well are the costs associated with drugs that Canadians have to pay. What we've proposed are some ways of dealing with that, such as changes in the PMPRB, which encourages high-cost drugs. There is also the lack of an abili

Health committee  I think that's a good question to ask governments: why they don't allow us to join the pCPA and why PMPRB continues to support high-cost drugs.

Health committee  In terms of the cost of drugs, our answer would be no. We're not here to argue the status quo; we're here to support reform, but a reform that can be done without increasing cost to government and without increasing the role of government. It would be for us to partner with gove

Health committee  In terms of access, we suggest a bit of formulary so that everybody has at least the minimum standard that is applicable.

Health committee  Well, one of the nice things about being government is that you're not subject to the Competition Act.

Health committee  I'll ask Mr. Frank if he has anything to add to this, but we're not certain of the basis of the work that's been done in terms of how the question was asked on this issue about whether they fill their drugs or not. I'll just anecdotally note that the last time I went to the doc

Health committee  I'll ask Mr. Frank to go through the analysis. It's quite simple, actually.

Health committee  I think the basis of that thinking is the fact they can negotiate a lower price because they would be using the entire Canadian market. That is an important factor, and that's why we say if we are able to join with the provinces to negotiate a price that reflected the entire mark

Health committee  Yes, we believe that we would be. Not only would there be innovation that would continue, which would help reduce the cost of drugs over time, but there would also be more choice if an employer wanted to offer more drugs. That would be available to that employer. I know unions

Health committee  I think we already do that, and the fact that the provinces use us for that function, I think, reflects a realization on their part that we can do it cheaper than they can do it.

Health committee  We already do, and we continue to work with the various players, with IT providers and with pharmacists, to continue to lower the costs associated with providing the drugs to consumers.

Health committee  We represent more than that, but in terms of the ones that are active in this business, there are 24.

Health committee  Yes.