Health committee  It depends on the situation. What will determine if the patient can stay in the military or not is whether they can meet the universality of service requirement. In the case of diabetes, it is not the condition that is necessarily the issue; it is the medication they take that is

Health committee  We do have health promotion programs in the forces. Just to name a few, we have smoking cessation programs. We have programs to lose weight. We have multiple programs in the forces under health protection. Many programs I'm not even aware of, but they exist.

Health committee  In the case of the coverage of the medication, as I said, we always end up having 100% coverage for our members. If it's not part of our benefits list and our patients have a need, because of the exceptions process, they will always have a solution for those patients. With rega

Health committee  The rare diseases don't happen very often in our population. We're really a subset of the population. In cases where we might have a patient who has a rare disease who would still meet the universality of service—and we'd have to look at that because of the exceptions process—the

Health committee  Currently, about 66,000 members of the regular forces are covered under our plan.

Health committee  Including those reservists, the number is 71,000. That's everyone who is covered.

Health committee  That's right.

Health committee  No, but there is one exception to that. We have a military base in Germany, and we provide medications to the dependants of CF members, but they have to pay because the costs aren't covered. That is the only case where we provide medications to dependants.

Health committee  No, because CF members have access to the Public Service Health Care Plan. It's the same plan that public servants have access to. So, the families of CF members are covered as dependants under that private plan.

Health committee  No, they use civilian pharmacies.

Health committee  No. As I explained earlier, Germany is the only exception. It's a matter of supply. The products in Germany aren't the same as we have here.

Health committee  This is clearly the case. The cost per CF member is much lower than the national average. We're talking about $800 as the national average, compared to $375 for members. As you said, our population is generally healthier. It's also younger. So they aren't big users of medication.

Health committee  Under our current policy, we allow members who leave the military up to three additional months of coverage to help them to transition to civilian pharmacies, to find a doctor, and so on. My section also deals with the transition of members. We print the complete drug profile f

Health committee  There is a drug plan for veterans. As with the Canadian Forces, Medavie Blue Cross manages this. However, as we also do for coverage, veterans make the decisions about coverage.

Health committee  Currently, we have not joined the pCPA.