HESA Committee Meeting
Notices of Meeting include information about the subject matter to be examined by the committee and date, time and place of the meeting, as well as a list of any witnesses scheduled to appear. The Evidence is the edited and revised transcript of what is said before a committee. The Minutes of Proceedings are the official record of the business conducted by the committee at a sitting.
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Minutes of Proceedings
Ake Blomqvist, Colleen Flood, Mélanie Bourassa Forcier and Victor Elkins made statements and, with Chandra Pasma, answered questions.
At 10:17 a.m., the sitting was suspended.
At 10:25 a.m., the sitting resumed.
It was agreed, — That a proposed budget in the amount of $ 8,400.00, for the study of Bill C-224, be adopted.
On motion of Darshan Singh Kang, it was agreed, — That the Committee request the Parliamentary Budget Officer to provide it with an analysis of the following items:
a. The percentage of Canadians: i. who are ineligible for public prescription pharmaceutical coverage (under current provincial and federal programs), excluding catastrophic coverage, and who do not have private or employer sponsored coverage; andii. whose private or employer-sponsored coverage has been reduced or eliminated in the past 10 years; and where possible, broken down by region (West, North, Prairies, Ontario- Quebec, Atlantic), by urban/rural, by age quintile and by annual household income quintile.b. Estimate the current annual total of:i. employer contributions to employer-sponsored private insurance benefit plans in respect of prescription pharmaceutical coverage;
ii. employee contributions to employer-sponsored private insurance benefit plans in respect of prescription pharmaceutical coverage;
iii. total out-of-pocket payments by patients for prescription pharmaceuticals; and
iv. tax subsidy to employer-sponsored private insurance benefit plans.c. Estimate the cost of (1) creating and (2) administering:i. a single-payer universal first-dollar prescription drug coverage; and
ii. a single-purchaser and national distribution system for prescription drugs, possibly modeled on the Canadian Blood Services and/or other relevant models in Canada or other jurisdictions.d. Assume that there is a single national formulary for prescription drugs with at least three tiers: necessary medicines (Tier 1); equivalent-to-necessary/alternative therapies (Tier 2); and all others (Tier 3). In terms of the financing of a single-payer prescription drug coverage program, analyze the efficiency of an:i. introduction of a payroll tax;
ii. increase in sales tax;
iii. increase in corporate and/or personal income tax; and
iv. introduction of a $5 co-pay on Tier 2 and a moderate co-pay on Tier 3.e. Discuss the implications of and the tools available for raising an additional $10bn in revenue to finance such a program.f. To the extent possible:i. estimate of the savings to the health care system from eliminating cost-related non-adherence to pharmaceutical prescriptions in Canada; and
ii. estimate of the savings achievable by a single-payer, as opposed to the present multiplicity of public and private payers, acting as the sole original purchaser of prescription pharmaceuticals in Canada.In carrying out this analysis, the PBO will work with Canadian Institutes for Health Information, Statistics Canada, Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technology in Health, IMS Brogan and other sources to obtain appropriate data and will not rely on analyses prepared by or for a third party. The PBO’s report will disclose in detail the sources of data, the quality of the data and the methods of analysis used.
By unanimous consent, it was agreed, — That, notwithstanding the Committee routine motion on the distribution of documents, adopted on Monday, February 3, 2016, the Clerk be authorized to distribute a draft workplan on the study of the opioid crisis in Canada in English only.
It was agreed, — That the meetings of Tuesday, October 4, and Thursday, October 6, 2016, be dedicated to the study of the opioid crisis in Canada; and that the Committee approve the proposed schedule of the first two (2) meetings.
At 10:51 a.m., the Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair.