Health committee  These sorts of factors are more prevalent among people who have a low income.

Health committee  Low income.

Health committee  Low income.

Health committee  Low income. The other thing I will add is these are some, but there are also many underlying issues besides income, as people such as racialized Canadians and women face systemic barriers to education. There are a whole host of these social factors, these social determinants of

Health committee  We don't avoid costs by not having this program; we just downstream costs. In the case of my patients now who can't afford to pay for their medications out of pocket, who don't have an insurance plan, their diseases aren't going away; they're just being left untreated. For exampl

Health committee  People certainly die from complications of their medical conditions that often are untreated because they don't have access to—

Health committee  I can only tell you from my own experience. I can't tell you what the top five definitely are.

Health committee  What I will say is that the way people get sick has changed. When medicare was founded and prescription drugs weren't included, people were breaking their bones, having heart attacks, going to hospitals, being patched up and sent home. A lot has happened since the late 1960s and

Health committee  I don't know what specific effect it would have on the drug industry, but one thing you have hit on is that there are many things that influence people's health, such as their social determinants, their income, and their employment status. It's the employment status that I think

Health committee  I was also going to bring up the point that pharmacare can actually promote medication safety. That is not something we've talked about, but it's an important part of the program. I also wanted to share an example that illustrates the point that you were making in your question.

Health committee  Yes, absolutely. There's this national conversation now about the rise of contract work, the gig economy, and precarious work. I see that play out with the patients in my practice. There are patients who might have lost their jobs when they had a regular job with benefits, but

Health committee  This is something we're seeing in offices across the country. Absolutely.

Health committee  The only other thing I'll add is that the provinces are already starting to act on this, because many provinces recognize this as a huge gap in the health care system. We've seen Ontario launch the OHIP+ program for those up to age 25 to expand publicly paid prescription drugs. T

Health committee  It's not only good for cost effectiveness. It will also ensure that we pay only for medications that actually work, and not just medications that are approved.

Health committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the members of the health committee for the invitation to speak today. I'm here today not just in my role as chair of Canadian Doctors for Medicare, but also as a family doctor in Toronto, with an inner city downtown practice that runs the spe