Canada is the only country with a universal health care system that does NOT provide universal coverage of medically necessary prescriptions, meaning Canada’s universal public health care system effectively ends as soon as a patient is handed a prescription to fill.

People in this province understand that universality is a key principle of health care and that prescription drugs are a vital component of health care, which is why Albertans overwhelmingly support universal Pharmacare. Because no one should ever have to choose between filling their prescriptions, or paying for rent or groceries!

Do you support a universal Pharmacare program? Tell your MP & MLA to ensure that ALL Albertans have access to the medications they need!

Here are the facts:

• A national public drug plan would save us money. We pay the second highest price for pharmaceuticals in the world, trailing only the United States. The federal government, provinces, territories, and hospitals all negotiate separately with pharmaceutical companies for the price of medicines, resulting in $7.3 billion in squandered health care dollars each year. We would see a projected yearly savings of $9 billion for employers and $7.1 billion for households. By signing on to the national Pharmacare plan, Alberta stands to receive $792.9 million in federal funding over the next four years.
  
  Not to mention the downstream costs resulting from inadequate access and cost-related nonadherence to necessary prescription medicines: universal coverage for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic respiratory condition medications alone would spell 220,000 fewer visits to emergency departments and 90,000 fewer hospitalizations a year, while full Pharmacare could save $1,488 per patient per year. Even factoring out the full cost of national Pharmacare, that astronomical cost savings for our strained health care systems.
   
• A national public drug plan would save lives.  Thousands of Canadians suffer a premature death every year because of barriers to accessing their medications, while hundreds of thousands more experience avoidable health deterioration as a result. 
  
  Almost 1 in 4 people in Canada report skipping or splitting their prescriptions due to high costs. A national Pharmacare program would ensure that every Canadian had access to the life-saving drugs they need.
   
• A national formulary would be evidence-based, resulting in better and safer drugs. Research shows that only about 1 out of every 10 new drugs offer therapeutic advantage over medicines currently on the market. New medicines do not need to be an improvement on those already on the market, they just need to be better than a placebo. Further, pharmaceutical expenditure on research in development has been steadily falling in the last 30 years, now accounting for only 4.1% of pharmaceutical profits.
  
  A national, evidence-based formulary created free from political and industry influence would ensure that all Canadians, regardless of income or location would have access to the safest and most effective prescription drugs. 
   
• A fill-in-the-gaps model won't work. We already have a patchwork of private and public drug plans - more than 100 public drug plans and 113,000 private plans across the country, meaning cost and access varies drastically based on things like your age, your place of employment, or the province you live in. Alberta alone has 23 public drug and supplementary benefit plans, and yet 17% of Albertans have no drug coverage. Additionally, plans often have high deductibles, co-pays, and caps on remittances, meaning that even with drug benefits, medications remain unaffordable for far too many.
  
  Only a universal, single-payer program would ensure that every Canadian had access to the medications they need, regardless things like age, income, location, or marital status, while saving employers and households billions of dollars every year.
   
• We need co-operation between our governments. The federal government has signed bilateral agreements with the BC, Manitoba, PEI, and Yukon governments, while Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, Nunavut, and Northwest Territories are all waiting for Pharmacare talks to resume. But Alberta's Health Minister already stated that the UCP government intends to opt Alberta out of the deal, even before details were announced.
  
  Piecemeal support across the country would undermine the universality of the program, contributing to inequity from province to province. It would also diminish many of the positive impacts of a nation-wide program, including lessening out ability to save money via bulk bargaining for the best prices for prescription drugs.
   
• Pharmacare is already working! Since the historic passing of the Pharmacare Act last October, three provinces and one territory have signed on to the first stage of the program. And those provinces are already feeling the difference: more people in BC than ever are opting for more effective contraception methods now that they're affordable thanks to universal coverage. While diabetes coverage is poised to save the lives of an estimated 420 working-aged Canadians each year once everyone is able to afford their medications and medical supplies.
  
  We can't stop now. Everyone in this country deserves universal coverage for their prescriptions, regardless of our medical history, our income, or the province we live in.