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The Saskatchewan government is questioning a report recommending universal pharmacare.
The Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare published their final report Wednesday, recommending an eight-year plan to subsidize the cost of prescription drugs.
Provincial health minister Jim Reiter told Gormley the report is flawed.
“The concept of making sure that everybody is covered for their medication, we certainly support that in principle, but the devil’s always in the details,” he said.
“Our concern, first of all, is where that money’s going to come from and second, we don’t know what role financially they expect the provinces to play in this.”
The report contains a list of 60 policy recommendations. They range from capping the cost to an individual for a single drug at $100 a year to supporting government data collection related to pharmaceuticals.
Reiter raised concerns that this plan would only shift costs.
“If we go with (this report’s parameters), the folks that are paying out of pocket right now, or the folks who are covered under private plans, that’s now going to be on the taxpayer’s hook,” he told Gormley.
The Saskatchewan NDP came out in support of the report’s recommendations. Leader Ryan Meili called for the government to pledge support for a national pharmacare plan.
Reiter said it was too early to make that strong of a statement.”Frankly, it’s impossible to say you support something or don’t support something when you don’t have the details.”
