Health committee  In our drug spending report we regularly compare provinces, and most recent data shows that there is quite a variability in per capita. It ranges from just under $600 per person in British Columbia, and at the high end, it's Quebec, at almost $1,000 per person. Again, there are s

Health committee  It depends on how that is structured and what the approach is. Right now a portion of that $29 billion is already covered by public drug programs that are in place in the jurisdictions and with the federal government, but there is that private sector piece. It really depends what

Health committee  It's certainly something that we would look at. Offhand, it is difficult to know whether having a national approach would really impact those utilization patterns. They vary right now by province, and a lot of factors come into play such as how they're prescribed, the health stat

Health committee  We have data in our claims database that not only allows us to establish the baseline as to where we are now, but also how that changes each year. That's certainly something that could be monitored over time in terms of looking at what the effect of any change in coverage might b