A new study from Statistics Canada has found that one in five Canadians don't have prescription drug coverage, and many more lack adequate coverage and skip filling medications because of cost.
"Despite Canadians’ need for prescription medications, Canada remains the only country that offers universal health care without universal coverage for prescription drugs," the report said.
Women, racialized groups, immigrants, seniors, low-income groups, and those with chronic health conditions were more likely to have gaps in coverage and face barriers to getting prescription medications.
About 7.5 million Canadians have to pay out-of-pocket because they are uninsured and may cover these costs by "borrowing money or trading off food, heat, rent or other health care expenses."
Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare, said he has heard stories from Albertans, and especially seniors, about skipping taking their medications because they can't afford it.
"Stories of skipping a dose to get through the month or cutting things in half or looking at ways to try to get by because of the cost of living. And we're hearing that so much more in the last year or so, of people making choices where they have their rent, they have groceries, they have kids to feed, and medication is the thing that starts to fall down the list," Gallaway said.
With Canada's patchwork of thousands of different public and private insurance plans, and their different levels of coverage and cost, "there are all these different barriers of why people may or may not access the medication they need, even with coverage, because coverage isn't universal, and it isn't free for everyone." he said.
The federal Liberals and NDP were expected to deliver a universal pharmacare bill by the end of 2023. But in December, the two parties agreed to extend that deadline to March 1, 2024.
"We know that many people are not taking the medication they need because they can't afford to, and this is getting worse as Canadians are struggling with the high cost of living. Given that context, continuing progress towards a universal national pharmacare program is more important than ever. We must get this right," MP and NDP heath critic Don Davies said in a media statement.
Since the "supply-and-confidence" agreement between the Liberals and NDP was signed in 2022, which includes the commitment to work on a "universal national pharmacare program," insurance industry and others opposed to the plan have significantly stepped up lobbying efforts, according to a coalition of patient advocates, unions, and health professionals.
Many of the claims of made by drug and insurance industry lobbyists, such as over 90 per cent of Canadians already having some form of drug coverage, are called into questions by the data released by StatCan, Gallaway said.
"It's very clear in the Stats Canada data that that's untrue. You know, 97% of Canadians don't have drug coverage, and the industry should be questioned on some of the things they're saying as they're fighting against the proposed universal coverage for drugs," he said.
As of 2019, the StatCan report shows a little over 80 per cent of Canadians have some form of prescription drug coverage.
The report used data from 2015, 2016 and 2019 national health surveys, and shows a slight increase in coverage during that period, largely driven by the expansion of government-sponsored plans in Alberta, Ontario, and Prince Edward Island. In 2020, Alberta's government reduced the coverage available through its Seniors Drug Benefit Program, meaning these gains in coverage were likely short lived, Gallaway said.
"One of the major changes that UCP made to drug coverage when they came into power was cutting tens of thousands of Albertans off of the seniors drug plan, putting a new restrictions on that public seniors drug plan. And you see in these stats, that seniors are the most likely to need public job coverage, because they're not on employer plans anymore.
"So I suspect when we see future data, we won't see that increase maintained from 2015 until now."
