Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Last week, FDA authorized the State of Florida to import pharmaceuticals from Canada. The price of branded pharmaceuticals in the US is nearly three times the cost of identical pharmaceuticals in Canada, so this approach could save the US money. While there are some administrative issues to work out on the US side, the biggest…
I’ve mentioned this in a number of previous posts, but large scale importation from Canada won’t work to bring down US drugs prices. The US market is too large and Canada does not have the supply to meet US demand. Further, policies proposing drug importation from Canada assume that Canadians will be passive actors in…
Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration published a final rule providing guidance for allowing drug importation from Canada. The drugs have to be approved by the Government of Canada’s Health Canada’s Health Products and Food Branch (HPFB) and can be imported by States or Indian Tribes, or in certain circumstances by pharmacists or…
This month, RADAR on Specialty Pharmacy, wrote an article on drug importation titled “HHS Importation Efforts Move Ahead, but Questions Remain”. As part of the article, I was interviewed. Below is an excerpt. High drug prices have been in the news for a few years, catching “the ire of public opinion and politicians,” observes Jason…
Today, the Trump administration laid out a plan to allow states, drug wholesalers and pharmacies to import some cheaper drugs from Canada. While at first glance many may believe that this approach would lead to large decreases in drug prices, in practice the impact on prices is likely to be modest. In a Washington Times…
A number of politicians have called for the ability to import drugs from Canada and other developed countries. For instance, Bernie Sanders said: “I believe we should be able to import into the United States from Canada, and from other countries, FDA-approved medicine, which would substantially lower prices.” However, Canada does not want the U.S.…
According to a news report in The Globe and Mail, one of the primary reasons for falling life expectancy in Canada is the opioid epidemic. Life expectancy in Canada has stopped increasing for the first time in more than four decades, due largely to soaring overdose deaths in the Western provinces. In British Columbia, the…
Yes it is true. Wang et al. (2015) report: Unlike physician and hospital services, which are universal in Canada, coverage for prescription drugs dispensed outside hospitals falls outside the Canada Health Act and provincial governments only provide public drug programs for some population groups,primarily seniors and social assistance recipients…Canada is still the only country that…
Ontario implemented a physician pay-for-performance (P4P) scheme in 2002. This P4P framework was a jointly agreed upon by the Ontario government and the Ontario Medical Association. The Ontario P4P program is described in Hurley, DeCicca and Buckley (2013) in more detail below: [Ontario’s P4P program] targets performance bonuses on effective preventive services whose rates of provision were…
Canada’s spends far less on health care on health care than the U.S. According to the CIA World Factbook, in 2010 Canada spent 11.3% of its GDP on health expenditures compared to 17.9% of GDP in the U.S. Nevertheless, a Society of Actuaries (SOA) report claims that Canada may be in a tenuous fiscal situation. …