Question

Sample questions for Econ 3308-W 2020

1. In the February 2018 spring budget, the federal government announced the creation of the Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare, and by June 2018, the seven-member council was launched chaired by Eric Hoskins, MD. The final finding of the Advisory Council was published in June 2019. The report contains many proposals and 60 recommendations. Some of the highlights are listed below:

• we are recommending the federal government work with provincial and territorial governments and stakeholders to establish universal, single-payer, public pharmacare in Canada.
• We propose that the government enact national pharmacare through new legislation embodying the five fundamental principles in the Canada Health Act:

• Universal: all residents of Canada should have equal access to a national pharmacare system;
• Comprehensive: pharmacare should provide a broad range of safe, effective, evidence-based treatments;
• Accessible: access to prescription drugs should be based on medical need, not ability to pay;
• Portable: pharmacare benefits should be portable across provinces and territories when people travel or move; and
• Public: a national pharmacare system should be both publicly funded and administered.

• The National Pharmacare would start with the creation of a Canadian Drug Agency (preliminary funding for an agency was announced in the 2019 federal budget). Among the agency’s first tasks would be to create a national formulary.

1. What are the proposed timeline for these implementations and, what is the recommendation(s) for the creation of “National Formulary”.
2. Identify and explain three (out of 60) of the recommendations?
3. What was your criteria for choosing those three?
4. In your opinion, is there any subject or issue missing in this report? Could you explain?

Answer 1

From the above passage we can infer solutions to the questions:

a. The timeline set by the advisory council for implementation of these schemes are after the publishing of their final findings that is after June 2019. Optimistically evaluating, these schemes should be for public use by mid of 2020.

The recommendations for the National Formulary are:

1. The Drug Advisory Council recommends the national formulary be evidence-based and comprehensive in order to offer patients with the most effective treatment choices.
2. The council also recommends that the national formulary include prescription drugs that treat both physical as well as mental health conditions.
3. The Drug Advisory Council recommends the national formulary to provide appropriate treatment options for people from all grounds irrespective of age, race, ethnicity, sex and gender identity,thereby catering to all the Canadians
4. The Drug Advisory Council also recommends the national formulary to include prescription drugs that respond to the specific and unique needs of children and youth, in addition to developing a strategy to address the availability of approved drugs and formulations for them.

b. The 3 recommendations which I felt the most vital are listed:

1. The council recommends the Canadian drug agency create and implement a national strategy on appropriate prescribing to support prescribers and help patients better understand the pharmaceutical treatment choices available to them.
2. The council recommends federal, provincial and territorial governments regulate pharmaceutical industry payments to health care providers, institutions and patient groups, beginning with mandatory public disclosure of all such payments.
3. The council recommends the federal government provide long-term, adequate and predictable funding to provinces and territories sufficient to cover the incremental costs of national pharmacare.

I have referred to online resources to list out these recommendations. In case you are interested in reading all the recommendations, refer to the URL below

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/corporate/about-health-canada/public-engagement/external-advisory-bodies/implementation-national-pharmacare/final-report.html#5.4

The first recommendation draws in the need to educate the patients with regards to pharmaceutical treatment choices available to them so that they are catered with the best service possible, and they actually know about it.

The second recommendation tries to implement payment regulations for obvious reasons like maintaining transparency and protect the consumers against hefty pricing.

The third recommendation urges the federal government to provide a good funding to the territories so that latter is not stranded to cover the excessive costs incurred.

c. My main criteria for choosing these 3 is very simple: the urgency. Yes, how urgently these recommendations are to be implemented by the Drug Council. If you observe my solution in the previous section, you will get to know the urgency I have stressed upon.

d. The report is too brief. It could have positively contained some of the vital recomendations I have mentioned to give an intuitive overview of the urgency to set up National Pharmacare, and how these recommendations protects the citizens' rights on the long run in the purview of healthcare.

If You are satisfied with the solution, do give a thumbs up. Cheers!