-A A +A
May 01

Drug Pricing and the Appropriate Federal Role in Pharmacare

C.D. Howe Institute

Webinar with Åke Blomqvist, Health Policy Scholar, C.D. Howe Institute; Adjunct Research Professor, Carleton University

Proponents of a national Pharmacare plan in Canada suggest that it would kill two birds with one stone. It would attain the long-standing goal of universal coverage against the cost of pharmaceuticals, and it would reduce the high costs that Canadian pay today for the drugs they use, through taxes, insurance premiums, and out of pocket.

In this webinar, we discuss an issue that has not received much attention in the debate: That Canada has an obligation to contribute its fair share to the costs of the world-wide R&D that is necessary to develop new drugs. To this end, we have patent laws that make developers of new drugs the only legal sellers, and hence make it possible for them to charge high prices.

The webinar considers the question what combination of measures is likely to strike the most reasonable compromise between the conflicting objectives of R&D financing cost containment: Patent law reforms, centralized drug purchasing, and federal price regulation through the Patent Medicines Prices Review Board. It also touches on the question of the appropriate role for the federal and provincial governments in creating Pharmacare, and the merits of a universal plan in which funding continues to be divided between government and private insurance.

Åke Blomqvist, Health Policy Scholar, C.D. Howe Institute; Adjunct Research Professor, Carleton University

Åke Blomqvist received his undergraduate education in his native Sweden, and a PhD from Princeton University in 1971. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario where he taught between 1968 and 2002.

From 2002 to 2010, he lived in Asia, serving as Head of Economics in the National University of Singapore, and from 2009 to 2010 was Professor in the Center for Human Capital and Labor Economics Research at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing.

Effective 2011, he is Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University and Health Policy Scholar at the C.D. Howe Institute.

Blomqvist’s two principal areas of research have been the economics of developing countries, and the economics of health care. His work has been published both in the journals and in more policy-oriented outlets. Much of his writing in health economics has had an international comparative flavour. Most recently, it has focused on health system reform in China.

to

Add to Calendar