While high-cost specialty medications represent about 30 per cent of drug costs, the total budget impact of rare disease drugs is less than two per cent, said Brad McCaw, associate director of market access at Alexion Pharmaceuticals Canada. Within the high-cost specialty market’s top 20 drugs, only one is designated for rare disease, he said […]
At the start of a new decade, it makes sense to look in the rear-view mirror to better understand where the industry is going. For drug plans, a crescendo of forecasts have predicted skyrocketing benefits costs, driven by high-cost drugs. That talk has only increased the cries for a national pharmacare strategy to make drugs more affordable. Looking back […]
Quebec employers can expect to face significant increases to their drug pooling premiums in 2020. The Quebec Drug Insurance Pooling Corp., which sets the annual pooling parameters for private drug plans in the province, has increased the cost that plan sponsors with Quebec employees must pay per plan member. Plan sponsors pay different rates for members with and […]
While the case for creating an Alberta Pension Plan looks straightforward on the surface, it’s far from a slam dunk, according to a memo published by the C.D. Howe Institute. In the memo responding to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s plan to consult on whether the province should withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan and start […]
The former chief executive officer of the organization that would administer a separate Alberta pension plan says the proposed switch from the Canada Pension Plan doesn’t make much sense from an efficiency point of view. Leo de Bever, who retired from the Alberta Investment Management Corp. in 2015, says the threatened move by the Alberta government […]
In Monday’s federal election, the Liberal Party of Canada won a minority government with the Conservative Party of Canada taking official opposition status and both the Bloc Québécois and New Democratic Party collecting enough seats to potentially prop up a Liberal government. Overall, these political changes will likely have a very modest impact on broad […]
It’s an election year and, of course, I have a lot of opinions. But I’ll try to keep my political leanings as neutral as possible and simply lay out the facts. This issue will hit desks days before the federal election. However, as I write these words in mid-September, the main parties are just rolling […]
With the federal election about a month away, Canada’s political parties are rolling out their election platforms, making a host of promises to improve health care, employment insurance, the minimum wage and pension legislation. If elected, the Liberal Party of Canada, New Democratic Party and Green Party of Canada are all promising to implement a national pharmacare program. […]
The cost of employer-provided health benefits in Canada is forecasted to rise six per cent in 2020, outpacing general inflation by 1.9 per cent, according to a 2020 trend rates report by Aon. The increase is due to higher costs from the rising spend on drugs in general, noted a press release. Globally, costs for employer-sponsored medical plans in 2020 are expected to increase […]
As plan sponsors continue to look for ways to control drug plan spending, a new study from the University of British Columbia shows that switching from an open to a closed formulary can save big dollars. The study, published this month in the Canadian Medical Association Journal Open, analyzed what happened when the B.C. Hospital […]