The negotiation of drug prices in 9 industrialized countries is the focus of a study published in the journal 'Health Affairs' by experts from the University of British Columbia, who define it as a 'game' similar to the one played when buying a car : there is a price list 'suggested' by the manufacturing companies, and then there are the agreements made in secret to negotiate them. A practice that allows access to treatment to as many citizens as possible. And a challenge that, according to the authors, Canada is losing.
Interviewing the policymakers of 9 of the most developed nations in the world, the scholars led by Steve Morgan have highlighted that almost all countries now negotiate discounts with the pharmaceutical industries as a condition for the coverage of their medicines within the national health systems . And companies accept this compromise also because the confidentiality clause prevents any 'discounts' made in one state from setting a precedent in other countries.
Countries with systems involving more than one payer, including the United States and Canada, have less bargaining power in these negotiations, the authors point out, while New Zealand, despite its small population, can leverage its system universal coverage of care.
Yet, after the Obama health reform in the US, Canada now remains the country least able to obtain effective negotiation: it is the only one in the world with universal coverage for medical care and hospitalization, but not for drugs. Individual provinces and insurance companies can make individual agreements on the prices of medicines and some work together to obtain discounts.
But that's not all: according to Morgan, "the Canadian system is wrong. Ironically, the smaller provinces and uninsured Canadians will end up paying for the drugs out of their own pockets."
April 10, 2013 – PharmaKronos
