New Pharma strategy for seniors (part 2)

Healthy Albertans of modest
income, including seniors, will
tend to opt out of this optional
plan because the premium rates
are well in excess of the actual
cost of the drugs they require. In
doing so, however, they will be
gambling that they are not going
to be hit by a chronic condition,
because opting back in involves a
three- month waiting period
before coverage begins. A proper
pharmacare plan should not be an
invitation to gamble.
Prescription drugs are part of
preventative medicine, and
putting financial barriers in the
way of people obtaining the
medications they require is shortsighted.
They end up seriously ill
in the emergency room and
frequently have to be admitted to
hospital where, under the terms
of the Canada Health Act, the
medicine they require is freely
available to them. Such treatment
in acute care hospitals will cost far
more than any money saved by
altering the current drug plans.
Minister Liepert is mistaken if he
thinks his new plan will defuse the
anger of seniors. Middle-income
seniors do not begrudge free
prescription drugs for their lowincome
peers, but they do feel
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this plan betrays those who have
carefully planned and saved for
their retirement, confident that
the current, long-standing
premium-free seniors plan would
be available for them. Minister
Liepert’s view, however, is that
seniors “should not have a sense
of entitlement simply because
they turn sixty-five.”
Universality is a key principle of
health care coverage. What the
government doesn’t seem to
understand is that seniors don’t
want to be divided into income
categories. During our working
lives and even in retirement, we
have purchased supplementary
health care insurance with fixed
coverage, a fixed deductible, and
a fixed premium; income doesn’t
enter into it. MLAs of all people
should understand that; they all
enjoy a generous, subsidized,
supplementary health care plan
that covers a lot more than just
prescription drugs, and they all
pay the same flat rate, regardless
of income. And that subsidized
plan continues for five years after
they leave the legislature, or until
they turn seventy. Now that’s
what I call a sense of
entitlement!