Canadian Government Controls the Price of Pharmaceuticals
Which government has rigid price regulations on all prescription medications; the U.S. or Canada? If you said Canada, you are correct. As soon as a new drug is approved, the Canadian authorities set prices and then put a cap on the amount. As a result, pharmaceutical companies cannot continually raise the price of a drug. Additionally, each Canadian province is able to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers. This is solely based on the effectiveness and performance that each medicine shows in clinical studies. The more you learn about Canada drugs, the more benefits you find!
For instance, in Canada it is illegal to advertise prescription drugs to the public. No TV ads! Can you imagine that? Here in America, they become quite tiresome. This means advertising costs are not passed onto the consumer. Pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. have huge advertising budgets. The laws against marketing drugs in Canada state that advertisements contain impartial and often unverifiable information. Consumers making health decisions about medicines should talk to their doctors. Canada drug laws are fairer than those in the U.S. and protect the patient’s interests.
Individual provinces in Canada also have the authority to set cost limits and controls upon its pharmacies. This establishes another check in addition to the ones already in place initially by the Canadian government. Patients are assured they won’t go to their pharmacy to refill a prescription and face a large price mark-up. Furthermore, all drugs still under patent are regulated by the PMPRB. The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board scrutinizes costs and sets limits on all patented medicines in Canada. This is another advantage of the active and proficient function of government controls upon Canada drugs.
In the end, all of this government intervention in the regulation of cost controls upon the drug manufacturers and pharmacies result in one main advantage; that being the Canadian citizens will be able to afford to buy the prescription drugs that they need! Since the U.S. government does not have a body in place that monitors drug prices, many U.S. citizens on the Canadian border make trips to purchase Canada drugs from their pharmacies. They usually can expect to pay anywhere from 30 to 60 percent less! Other American patients are simply using internet access to purchase cheaper medications. Maybe it’s about time United States legislators began looking at Canada’s model of pharmaceutical drug price regulation.