Ottawa/CMEDIA: Contrary to the suggestions by experts of federal drug plans that the Liberals may have lost the political will to take bold steps toward a national program, Canada’s Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos claimed that Federal pharmacare plans are moving forward.
According to the confidence-and-supply agreement the NDP reportedly entered with the Liberals last year, the government has until the end of this year to pass some kind of pharmacare legislation including putting together a national list of essential medicines and a plan for bulk purchasing by 2025.
Duclos was confident that progress is likely to be incremental but said that the cost of drugs needs to be driven down and medications need to be made more accessible.
Duclos called The launch of the National Strategy for Drugs for Rare Diseases last month with committed $1.5 billion toward improving the access to and affordability of effective drugs for rare diseases over three years “an important signal to what we are looking to do in the longer term.”
Although the critics suggested that the government is dragging its feet, Duclos emphasized that it as carefully laying the groundwork to make sure each step toward long-term pharmacare is the right one.
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