Ottawa

Ashton on health care

Niki Ashton promises health care reform and floats the idea of a crown corporation charged with producing generic drugs.

Drugs consume the single largest portion of health care budgets, so “why not see the benefit of the drug production and drug consumption that we need in our system come back to us as Canadians?”

The real cost of making pharmaceuticals is much lower than the prices of even private generics on the market, so it would be possible to still produce much-needed drugs at a profit while offering a lower price than private companies, she said. This could both reduce health care costs and create a new revenue stream to pay for care, says Ashton. “We ought to be looking at innovative ways of making drug costs more affordable for our public health care system.”

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