Juno News - LAWTON： More socialism？ Government panel wants universal pharmacare

00:00:00.240 Good afternoon, Canada. Welcome to another True North Report. My name is Andrew Lawton, fellow with True North, here to talk about the last free thought platform in Canada, or so it feels with the shenanigans that have been going on in Parliament the last couple of weeks.

00:00:18.440 But we're not talking about that. We're taking advantage of that and talking about the fight against socialism, which is not an exaggeration now because an advisory council appointed by the Liberal government is now pushing for a $15 billion a year universal socialized PharmaCare plan.

00:00:39.780 So I want to talk about that at a fair bit of length, because there are a number of considerations here, not just the policy considerations and the dollar value, but the timing of it.

00:00:52.780 Because anything that the government does this close to an election, knowing we're this close to an election, is something that you have to look at with a bit of a cynical lens.

00:01:02.060 Not a critical lens, but a cynical lens, because the government is always trying to rig things in its favor.

00:01:07.400 That's not exclusive to the Liberals, but it's something that incumbent governments tend to do.

00:01:13.920 So I'm going to talk about that here, but I want to just give a bit of a background before we get to this point as to who the main players are of this.

00:01:22.020 Because the chair of the Liberal government's Advisory Council on National PharmaCare is the former Health Minister of Ontario, of my province, Eric Hoskins.

00:01:32.120 Now Eric Hoskins is a doctor, so he knows healthcare, he knows medicine, but he's also a former Liberal cabinet minister.

00:01:40.160 Not just a former Liberal cabinet minister, but a former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister.

00:01:46.160 And the Ontario Liberal government under Kathleen Wynne, and the preceding government under Dalton McGinty, these were very socialist governments.

00:01:55.480 They were very far-left governments, even by Liberal standards, and much as Justin Trudeau is on the left side of the left in his role as leader of the Liberals,

00:02:05.280 Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario cabinet, which included Eric Hoskins, they were all on the left side of the party and of the political scene at the time as well.

00:02:15.200 So Eric Hoskins is an ideologue, even if he is qualified to weigh in on medicine, he has an agenda, and that agenda is going to be inevitably driving anything he says about this.

00:02:27.280 So when he was appointed as part of the Advisory Council on National PharmaCare, it was a given that it was going to end up at some point with a recommendation for socialized pharma care.

00:02:42.120 The whole committee, the whole commission, the whole advisory council was there to explore National PharmaCare.

00:02:48.920 So the government does not spend money, and I don't know what the price tag of the investigation or of the study was,

00:02:56.200 but government doesn't spend money to get a report that at the end of it says everything's fine the way it is.

00:03:03.040 When government does a big giant study like this, and this has been going on for a year and a half almost,

00:03:09.320 when government does that, government has pretty much already decided what it wants to do.

00:03:15.920 They just want to have a big report to justify it so that they can say,

00:03:19.600 well, you know, the experts, they looked into it, we didn't decide, the experts decided this was the best way forward.

00:03:27.040 And I think that's what happened here, because the council released yesterday a 171-page report,

00:03:33.680 and the crux of this report is that a new drug agency would be created.

00:03:38.360 So a new bureaucracy, and this bureaucracy would look at the national list that it would form

00:03:44.400 of prescription drugs that would be covered by the taxpayers, and this would start by 2022.

00:03:51.240 Now what's relevant about 2022?

00:03:53.720 Well, it would be implemented, it would be in effect before the next election.

00:04:01.200 It would be implemented before the next election, and then they'd put in place a rollout to

00:04:08.360 do the full version, a more comprehensive plan that would have more drugs by 2027.

00:04:14.400 And the price tag by 2019 estimates of what it would cost in 2027, there are a lot of variables there,

00:04:22.400 but the estimates today are that in 2027 it would cost $15 billion a year.

00:04:27.400 And let's, the price is ridiculous, but we know it's going to be even more than that.

00:04:33.440 So I don't even want to focus in on that number, that $15 billion number, because I know that that is basically a lowball.

00:04:39.440 These things always cost more than the government say they're going to cost.

00:04:43.440 But what this committee is recommending is an eight year long rollout to socialized medicine.

00:04:53.480 The last bastion of non-socialized medicine right now is pharmacare in Canada.

00:05:00.480 And what the government wants to do is move it so that we have in Canada complete socialism when it comes to healthcare.

00:05:06.480 And I use that word socialism, that's a dictionary definition of what this is.

00:05:10.480 You can say that socialism is fine, but you can't say that this isn't socialism, it is a socialist idea.

00:05:16.520 But one big problem that I have, I have a number of problems, but one big one that I have here is that

00:05:23.520 if Canada's healthcare system, the parts of it that our government mandated right now,

00:05:28.520 was working completely fine, and everyone had great healthcare, and we were spending money efficiently,

00:05:36.560 and there were no wait times, and hallway healthcare wasn't a thing.

00:05:40.560 If everything in our healthcare system was working, and this idea of a big government approach to healthcare was working,

00:05:46.560 and the government said, you know, this is working so well, people are healthy, we're keeping the cost down,

00:05:52.560 the system is running smoothly, efficiently, everyone's getting looked after,

00:05:56.560 maybe we should expand it to Pharmacare.

00:06:00.600 I would ideologically object to it, but I wouldn't be able to argue with results.

00:06:07.600 If the government was actually doing what it thinks it's doing, I would have to say, alright, well,

00:06:12.600 it's at least a sensible discussion to have, but that isn't the case.

00:06:15.600 And I'm dealing in a hypothetical there, because the healthcare system in its current form is not working.

00:06:21.600 It's not working.

00:06:23.600 There's a reason that provinces, in particular Ontario, where Eric Hoskins was Health Minister for years,

00:06:28.640 and did nothing to curb the rise of hallway healthcare.

00:06:32.640 Protocols that have to be in place at hospitals to treat patients in hallways because they don't have beds.

00:06:41.640 You've got, in some parts of the provinces, empty surgical suites,

00:06:45.640 because hospitals burn through their allotment of surgeries they can perform on hip and knees by September.

00:06:52.640 You've got wait lists for MRIs in some parts of the country that are going for years.

00:06:59.680 You've got a patchwork of systems across the nation and very poor data collection in some places.

00:07:06.680 In Ontario, this is what I know the best, the Ontario situation, the previous government, the Liberals,

00:07:11.680 actually rigged the numbers so that you couldn't get accurate stats on wait lists,

00:07:15.720 because they would only calculate waiting times from when you saw a specialist to when you were treated.

00:07:22.720 They wouldn't count the referral to the specialist.

00:07:24.720 So there are huge problems with the current healthcare system right now.

00:07:28.720 Why is expanding that bureaucracy, why is expanding the scope of what government has to control,

00:07:35.760 going to be the best way forward?

00:07:39.760 Now you've got a number of unintended consequences here as well,

00:07:43.760 and I'm going to get through those in some detail, but I just want to rhyme off a couple of now.

00:07:47.760 For those who are tuning in, Andrew Lawton here with True North.

00:07:50.760 We're talking about the federal government's proposal now that it's received from the Advisory Council

00:07:56.920 to put forward single-payer Pharmacare.

00:07:59.160 So basically taking the way that our health insurance works now and expanding that to drug coverage.

00:08:05.480 You've got people that pay significantly into company benefit plans,

00:08:10.760 insurance companies that cover drugs for people without issue.

00:08:15.640 I don't know what happens to those drug companies.

00:08:19.960 I don't know what happens to those insurance companies.

00:08:23.560 I don't know what happens to the money being paid.

00:08:25.640 Because what they're arguing here is single-payer.

00:08:28.840 It's not a supplement to those who don't have coverage.

00:08:32.440 It is single-payer.

00:08:33.560 So this proposal, as it's laid out, would replace any private drug coverage you have.

00:08:40.200 Which means even if you're one of these people that has a good job,

00:08:43.800 and you have good benefits, and you have good drug coverage,

00:08:47.400 that may be replaced by the government whether you want it to be replaced or not.

00:08:54.040 And this happened in the US when Obama introduced the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

00:08:59.960 The big lie that he told, and I think he may have believed it at the time,

00:09:03.400 is no one's going to lose their insurance.

00:09:05.000 Now Obamacare was not single-payer.

00:09:08.600 Obamacare was forcing people to get health insurance,

00:09:12.040 forcing insurance companies to make it available.

00:09:14.680 But people lost their insurance.

00:09:16.120 People that had it, lost it.

00:09:18.520 Because the insurance companies needed to offset the money they were losing through Obamacare,

00:09:23.160 by charging existing customers more.

00:09:25.160 So a lot of people couldn't keep their plans.

00:09:28.280 Whereas right now, let's look at the way it's unfolding.

00:09:31.080 The report says by 2022, so that is two and a half years from now,

00:09:36.440 they want a list of common and essential drugs.

00:09:39.560 So I don't know how many this would be.

00:09:41.400 Maybe it's 500 drugs, maybe a thousand.

00:09:43.480 But they want a list of just the basics.

00:09:47.240 And then five years from that point, implement the comprehensive list.

00:09:51.560 Well, what happens if your company in 2022 that gives you insurance now says,

00:09:56.520 ah, you know, we know the government's putting its plan in here.

00:10:00.840 90% of the drugs that our insurance plan is paying for are common and essential.

00:10:07.240 So we're now suspending our benefits program.

00:10:09.960 We will no longer offer drug coverage.

00:10:13.640 And let's say that you're one of the people that needs an uncommon drug,

00:10:17.080 or a non-essential drug by the government's metrics here.

00:10:20.840 Well, all of a sudden, the government's not covering it.

00:10:24.280 Your employer's not covering it because they think the government is.

00:10:27.400 You're left out of pocket,

00:10:29.640 even though you're already paying the tax money through this.

00:10:32.040 And I realize this sounds circular,

00:10:34.360 but the point here is that behaviors always change

00:10:39.000 when people think someone else is footing the bill.

00:10:41.640 The behaviors always change when people can look to government and say,

00:10:45.000 oh, well, government's dealing with this. 0.82

00:10:46.920 Government has it covered.

00:10:49.160 Now, no one is arguing, least of all me,

00:10:51.320 that we shouldn't be covering drugs for those who can't afford it,

00:10:55.080 for those on disability, those who don't have access to benefits,

00:10:58.600 those who need life-saving cancer drugs

00:11:01.160 that aren't covered by health insurance, for example.

00:11:03.560 Yes, I'm all for finding a way to make this work.

00:11:06.440 But to take universality and impose that on people,

00:11:11.640 regardless of whether or not you have coverage,

00:11:14.440 is absolutely wrong.

00:11:15.800 It is government trying to bring everyone down instead of lifting everyone up.

00:11:22.200 Because we have to, and Margaret Thatcher gave this famous speech,

00:11:25.160 and you should watch it on YouTube.

00:11:26.440 I don't have the clip handy.

00:11:27.720 But she gave this famous speech,

00:11:29.000 which was, I believe, her last speech ever in the British House of Commons.

00:11:32.840 And the Liberals were, or the Lib Dems or Labour,

00:11:36.200 I can't remember who it was,

00:11:37.400 was taking aim at her for being pro-rich and pro-this.

00:11:40.360 And they said, you know, the poor, or the gap between the rich and the poor,

00:11:47.880 has gotten bigger on your watch.

00:11:50.600 You know, what do you have to say for yourself?

00:11:52.520 And Margaret Thatcher, spectacular woman that she was,

00:11:56.120 you know, used her hands in it. 0.99

00:11:58.120 And this is why the video is great,

00:11:59.400 because the Hansard wouldn't pick it up.

00:12:00.920 But she said, you know, what's happened is,

00:12:04.440 you know, the poor were here, and the rich were here,

00:12:07.160 and she brought everyone up, but the rich got richer. 0.99

00:12:11.560 And she was saying that, yes, you know,

00:12:14.280 that the gap may have widened, but everyone was better off.

00:12:17.080 And she said, you know, the left would love nothing more

00:12:20.920 than for the poor to be poorer,

00:12:23.160 so long as there's less space between them and the rich.

00:12:26.600 And she's right.

00:12:27.560 Because the fundamental premise of socialism

00:12:30.440 is that it brings everyone down.

00:12:32.840 It brings everyone down to the same level,

00:12:36.120 instead of giving everyone the opportunity to move up a level.

00:12:40.920 So yes, let's focus on people that can access drugs that need to.

00:12:44.360 Let's focus on how pharmacare could ease up.

00:12:48.760 If you had greater access to drugs,

00:12:51.080 that could actually ease up on the burden in hospitals,

00:12:54.600 because people are able to take advantage of something

00:12:57.560 and be more healthy in the interim.

00:12:59.160 And I don't want to get into these conspiratorial debates

00:13:01.320 about big pharma.

00:13:02.680 Yes, I know pharmacological companies have a powerful lobby.

00:13:06.840 I also realize that drugs save lives.

00:13:08.920 So I don't want to debate any big pharma stuff.

00:13:11.720 I haven't had anyone yet,

00:13:12.760 but I just know there's going to be a message about that. 0.98

00:13:15.320 So I'm trying to nip that in the butt right now. 0.58

00:13:17.960 I want to focus on the economics of it here, 0.93

00:13:20.520 because it's the economics that are going to,

00:13:23.160 I hope, get Canadians to look back to the government

00:13:26.200 and say, we don't want this.

00:13:28.840 Because again, if government is not doing socialized healthcare well now,

00:13:34.200 what makes you think they're going to do it better,

00:13:36.440 or even as well, if you add another layer of bureaucracy,

00:13:41.240 add another program, another agency into the mix,

00:13:44.440 it just is not going to work.

00:13:47.640 And Doctors for Medicare is a Canadian group that's very powerful.

00:13:51.080 They resist any changes to the healthcare system,

00:13:54.760 even if it would be demonstrably better, demonstrably better.

00:13:59.480 They fundamentally do not like it.

00:14:01.080 And, you know, one great example of this is,

00:14:03.480 and I've done a video on this before, paid plasma donations.

00:14:06.760 In Canada, it is very difficult in, I think, pretty much all provinces

00:14:12.120 to get paid to donate plasma.

00:14:14.920 Now, plasma is essential.

00:14:16.200 It's needed.

00:14:16.840 It's used for a number of medications and drug products

00:14:20.360 and or blood products.

00:14:22.520 Most people don't want to donate it because it's a big time commitment.

00:14:25.560 So clinics in the US and in, I believe, Saskatchewan,

00:14:29.480 there's one other place, Setup Shop, where they'll pay you.

00:14:31.960 They'll pay you, I think, $60 or whatever to donate plasma.

00:14:35.480 And the left has tried to ban that because they don't like the

00:14:39.160 mixture of profit into the healthcare system.

00:14:43.560 But the reality is that we don't have enough plasma.

00:14:47.400 And the shortage of plasma has to be fulfilled by buying it from the US

00:14:52.680 where donors are paid.

00:14:55.720 So Canadian Doctors for Medicare doesn't like it

00:14:58.440 because there is a dollar value.

00:15:00.200 They do not like money-changing hands, so they fight it.

00:15:03.240 So I have no doubt they're going to love this.

00:15:05.480 I have no doubt they're going to absolutely love this because it means

00:15:08.600 the government will further its stranglehold on healthcare in Canada

00:15:13.400 irrespective of whether it's doing what it's responsible for doing now

00:15:18.520 as well as it needs to be to be proud of this system.

00:15:21.320 And remember, this is not an advocacy for American-style healthcare.

00:15:26.360 I'm saying, as I've said time and time again, that healthcare does not need to be a binary

00:15:33.480 between Canada and the US.

00:15:35.240 It doesn't need to be a dichotomy.

00:15:37.080 The best healthcare systems in the world have both private and public components.

00:15:40.840 Switzerland is a great example.

00:15:42.920 Germany is a great example.

00:15:44.520 And even a lot of these Nordic socialist paradises that the left likes to exalt

00:15:49.720 as being the greatest countries in the world, they don't have completely public systems.

00:15:54.120 They all have private options and private alternatives.

00:15:57.800 So it's impossible to talk about national pharmacare or universal pharmacare

00:16:05.000 without looking at the broader issues in healthcare because government's trying to say

00:16:09.640 that it's doing everything perfectly so therefore it should be able to do more

00:16:13.880 and charge us more, billions more per year.

00:16:16.840 And the outcome, I've already told you a couple of examples, is that people are going to find

00:16:21.000 themselves unable to have certain coverage because their employers are going to think that the

00:16:26.920 government has and also that, and this is the big thing, government is not going to

00:16:34.920 do things as adequately as they're supposed to be.

00:16:39.160 So I would tremendously, tremendously like to see a greater discussion in all areas,

00:16:44.680 but healthcare certainly, about where government needs to be and government doesn't need to be.

00:16:50.760 And I'll give you a great example of this.

00:16:52.360 So today, just today, perfect timing, I had to go get an x-ray done.

00:16:58.600 Nothing huge.

00:16:59.240 I'm still alive.

00:16:59.960 I'm still here.

00:17:00.520 I'm fine.

00:17:01.320 But I went to an x-ray.

00:17:02.440 Now I went to a private x-ray clinic that's covered by OHIP, which is the Ontario Health Insurance

00:17:08.520 Plan.

00:17:09.720 So it's privately run, privately owned, but the government is the payer, if you will,

00:17:14.680 single payer.

00:17:15.560 And I had a great experience.

00:17:16.920 I had a great experience when I drove into the parking lot of the medical building.

00:17:22.200 I had to get a little thing and it says, you know, your first 15 minutes is free.

00:17:26.440 Everything after that is, I think, $4 an hour or something like that.

00:17:29.800 And wouldn't you know it, from parking, to going inside, to checking in, to getting the x-ray done,

00:17:36.600 to getting back to the car.

00:17:38.680 And I had no appointment.

00:17:39.640 I was a walk-in.

00:17:40.680 All of that was less than 15 minutes.

00:17:42.680 So I didn't have to pay for parking because it was that efficiently run.

00:17:46.520 Now there's an example of how, yes, it's government funded, but it's being run with

00:17:52.040 private sector efficiency.

00:17:53.880 I realize it may have been a one-off.

00:17:55.640 You go in some days, you probably don't get that experience.

00:17:59.160 But other, I mean, family medicine clinics are like this.

00:18:01.880 They're privately run, privately owned corporations, but the billing system is through the government.

00:18:07.480 And there's a variance.

00:18:09.000 There's a variance.

00:18:09.720 Some of them are really efficient.

00:18:11.080 Others are really inefficient.

00:18:12.680 You go to hospitals, government owned, government funded, everything goes through the government.

00:18:18.040 And people have nightmarish scenarios because hospitals have to pick up the slack of every

00:18:23.400 other area of the healthcare system not being run as effectively or as adequately as it should.

00:18:29.720 So I do believe it is essential for private sector and public sector to work together.

00:18:35.240 I mean, the libertarian in me thinks, okay, maybe there's a way to do it without government.

00:18:41.080 But it's not practical.

00:18:42.280 It's not going to happen in Canada.

00:18:44.440 So the libertarian in me can just kind of take a step back.

00:18:48.440 And I realized that there's going to be an option that will get everyone,

00:18:52.200 everyone who is there.

00:18:53.800 So Priscilla writes, a national pharmacare purchasing plan makes sense, but not necessarily single-payer.

00:19:00.280 Well, the problem is that I don't think you can have a national purchasing plan without it devolving

00:19:05.480 into single-payer.

00:19:07.160 Because once you create a single market, which is a big part of this, once you create a single market,

00:19:13.160 you're not actually giving people access to the market.

00:19:17.400 You're giving people access to the confined market that you've created.

00:19:22.040 And that's a nuanced difference, but it is still a significant difference nonetheless.

00:19:26.680 And not that I'm comparing, you know, aspirin to alcohol, although, I mean,

00:19:30.520 some people might like alcohol more than the drugs.

00:19:32.840 But, you know, you look at the LCBO, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the largest purchaser

00:19:38.120 of wine and spirits in the world.

00:19:40.680 But that purchasing power doesn't give consumers cheaper or better access to products,

00:19:46.760 because the purchasing power has made it a monopoly.

00:19:50.200 The purchasing power has given it a monopoly.

00:19:52.280 So if government is the single purchaser, and in many cases, the single payer,

00:19:57.640 if that happens, government also becomes the gatekeeper to what drugs you can have,

00:20:02.920 and what drugs you cannot have.

00:20:05.480 And that's very dangerous, because we've heard horror stories,

00:20:08.440 and I don't want to rhyme through them, because you can look these up very easily,

00:20:11.720 but we've all heard horror stories where someone wants to get access to some treatment or some drug,

00:20:17.000 and they can't in Canada.

00:20:18.200 The government won't cover it, the government won't allow it.

00:20:20.600 Even when people are prepared to pay out of pocket, they're not allowed to.

00:20:25.720 And those problems only get more accentuated.

00:20:29.640 They only get more accentuated, those problems,

00:20:32.280 when you make government the monopolistic source here, through which everyone has to go.

00:20:40.120 Now, I want to read what Eric Hoskins said, because this is what the council proposed.

00:20:45.640 They've said that they want a $2 copayment for common drugs, $5 for less common ones.

00:20:53.640 And now, interestingly enough, that I actually like.

00:20:56.440 If you're going to do this, put a copay in.

00:20:58.280 I would love to see a copay on family doctor visits and, you know, basic emergency room visits myself,

00:21:05.800 but neither here nor there.

00:21:08.040 But he says that the council studied various pharmacare models,

00:21:11.960 and they talked to 32,000 Canadians and organizations,

00:21:15.720 they had meetings across the country, and now it's time to show courage and boldness.

00:21:22.920 Wait for it.

00:21:24.280 And do some nation building that would benefit Canadians in unimaginable ways.

00:21:32.120 This guy is no longer a politician, allegedly, but he's using political language.

00:21:37.960 His report, which should be a detailed economic analysis, is talking about courage and boldness,

00:21:43.960 nation building, transforming Canada in unimaginable ways.

00:21:48.040 I mean, this guy's a liberal.

00:21:49.320 And look, I don't dispute that a liberal government should appoint liberal people.

00:21:53.560 I mean, that's the prerogative of government.

00:21:57.560 But what he's produced here is a political document, not an economic one.

00:22:02.360 I'm working my way through it.

00:22:04.040 I haven't read the whole 171 pages, but I've read the conclusions.

00:22:09.240 And, you know, the one thing that people should find very dangerous here is that

00:22:14.840 once you give government control of the healthcare industry, which it already has

00:22:19.720 for the most part in Canada, once you give government control of the healthcare industry,

00:22:23.800 you give government license to control everything else.

00:22:27.640 And just look at the stories we've covered that I've covered here with True North in the last year.

00:22:32.760 Things like government weighing a sugar tax, or warning labels on things,

00:22:37.640 or an extra tax on alcohol, or whatever.

00:22:41.720 And the excuse that's always given whenever these nanny state proposals come up is,

00:22:46.520 oh, but, you know, if people use this, if people drink a lot of sugar, smoke cigarettes, do this,

00:22:51.640 then it causes there to be a burden in the healthcare system, and then everyone has to pay for it.

00:22:55.880 So government's control of the healthcare system is an excuse for government to control every part of your life.

00:23:05.160 And if you give government control of pharmacare in this way, and by the way, it's not about regulation.

00:23:10.840 Pharmacare is already regulated in Canada significantly.

00:23:13.400 Drugs are regulated.

00:23:14.440 It's about regulating the transactions of them.

00:23:18.360 You are, again, letting government control every step of your life because they're going to say,

00:23:24.760 well, we have a vested interest in your health and your well-being,

00:23:27.800 which means we get to control all of these other things that you do.

00:23:33.080 And what Eric Hoskins said about this is that this is our generation's national project.

00:23:39.720 So when he says that he wants to do some nation building, he's being very honest.

00:23:45.720 This is just a chilling line.

00:23:47.160 He says, quote,

00:23:48.200 let's complete the unfinished business of universal healthcare.

00:23:53.640 That can be our promise and our legacy to each other and to all future generations.

00:24:02.360 Unfinished business of universal healthcare.

00:24:06.040 Now, I would say that universal healthcare itself right now is unfinished business because it's not

00:24:11.880 performing as effectively as it needs to be, as healthcare needs to be.

00:24:16.040 And I think we've learned that universality does not mean single payer.

00:24:20.360 You could have universal coverage without government needing to be the single payer behind it all.

00:24:26.280 Universality does not mean choice has to be thrown out the window.

00:24:30.520 But when he says the unfinished business, again, he's saying that we want to make sure that we

00:24:35.000 railroad through every single possibility we can of government control of healthcare.

00:24:41.720 And the one thing that the government's bragging about here is that the amount spent on prescription

00:24:47.160 drugs in Canada would drop by $5 billion a year.

00:24:51.640 So the plan here is that if you have government, and this is what Priscilla was saying earlier,

00:24:56.360 as the national purchaser, that you ease up on what people have to pay for it.

00:25:01.160 But again, the problem then is that government gets to decide what drugs you have access to.

00:25:07.320 You know, there's some, I forget if it was a congressman or a senator, but someone in the U.S.

00:25:10.920 just the other day introduced a bill that I quite liked, which was to let anyone,

00:25:17.320 if they are facing terminal illness, try any experimental treatment they'd like,

00:25:21.880 even if that's unapproved, as long as they're consenting to it.

00:25:25.480 And I like that a lot, because you should have a right to your own healthcare.

00:25:28.600 And all of these, my body, my choice people that you hear about in the abortion debate,

00:25:33.480 somehow don't seem to be as fervent in their advocacy of choice over where you get your healthcare from.

00:25:40.840 And there's a, there's a big, a big glaring hole in the liberals' argument on this,

00:25:46.200 that you should have the choice, the freedom to do all this stuff.

00:25:48.920 But when it comes to healthcare, you've got to go through the Politburo, you've got to go through the government.

00:25:53.960 And that is fundamentally wrong and fundamentally inefficient and ineffective.

00:26:00.040 And again, the answer to this question was already determined before the question was even asked.

00:26:06.040 There's no doubt in my mind, despite the council's claim that it studied all of these systems,

00:26:11.160 that it was going to this inevitably, that this was what they had already decided.

00:26:15.080 It's like with electoral reform.

00:26:17.480 Justin Trudeau had already decided he wanted rank balloting before he even said,

00:26:21.800 we're going to start the study.

00:26:22.920 And then it ended up where that became just such a colossal backfire on him that he had to,

00:26:30.280 excuse me, that he had to walk it back.

00:26:32.920 But the timing of this, just to close off on this point is relevant,

00:26:37.240 because this process could have been done months ago.

00:26:41.880 Or it could have been done next year.

00:26:43.560 It could have been done whenever.

00:26:45.160 But Justin Trudeau knew that this report was coming.

00:26:49.080 He knew what it was going to say.

00:26:50.760 And more importantly, he knows that the election is in October,

00:26:53.720 and that the parliamentary session is basically done.

00:26:56.440 So the only thing that politicians are doing between now and October is campaigning.

00:27:00.760 Justin Trudeau knows all of this.

00:27:03.160 So now what he has done by this report,

00:27:06.680 is he's allowed himself to be able to say during the election,

00:27:10.520 we now have this study that says National Pharmacare is what Canada needs.

00:27:14.280 It doesn't matter if it's a Liberal-approved Liberal Commission study.

00:27:18.040 But so he can say, we're going to implement this if we get elected.

00:27:22.520 Which is why it's important that Canadians know the facts of these.

00:27:25.560 Look, I'm a very firm believer, unfortunately, that a lot of people love the giveaways

00:27:32.280 without necessarily knowing whether it makes sense,

00:27:37.000 and knowing whether it can even be paid for.

00:27:40.840 I mean, we haven't even gotten to the part of this question yet,

00:27:43.480 where we have to figure out where that $15 billion a year is going to come from.

00:27:48.040 But you look further to that point, and there's a sobering aspect of this,

00:27:55.720 in that government only ever spends.

00:27:58.840 I mean, that's what government does.

00:28:00.440 They spend money, they waste money.

00:28:02.120 So it's very realistic that the cost of administering this scheme

00:28:06.280 will outweigh any of those purported $5 billion a year in savings,

00:28:12.040 that we're supposed to be grateful for.

00:28:14.600 But I may have told the story before, it's a very short one, don't worry.

00:28:17.720 When I was campaigning a year ago, or I guess a year and a couple of weeks ago now,

00:28:21.720 in the provincial election, you know, the NDP was planning to, if elected,

00:28:27.960 put forward universal dental care, which is going to come next.

00:28:32.200 Once the pharmacare is in, dental care is next.

00:28:34.840 But there was a woman that I talked to, upper middle class woman, nice house, 0.99

00:28:38.760 nice neighborhood, seemed educated, said,

00:28:41.240 well, you know, I'm thinking of voting NDP, I really like that idea of universal dental care.

00:28:45.960 And I said, look, I get that. I get that it's expensive, and I understand people wanting coverage,

00:28:50.440 but the big question is, who's going to pay for it?

00:28:53.960 And she looked at me and said, oh, I never thought of that.

00:28:57.480 Again, smart, educated woman, nice woman. 0.57

00:29:00.360 I don't know if she voted for me or not, but we had a great conversation.

00:29:03.720 But she heard this giveaway and never even crossed her mind that you have to find a way to pay for it.

00:29:10.600 And I fear that that's going to dictate a lot of the reaction to this national pharmacare pitch as well.

00:29:16.600 People that say, yeah, I love the idea of it.

00:29:19.000 If you've got to get a prescription filled, not having to pay more than $2 or $4 or $6,

00:29:23.560 but people saying that, yes, it's a great idea,

00:29:28.040 without thinking of what needs to be the most fundamental question, can we even afford this?

00:29:33.480 And Trudeau already has had to keep bumping back, bumping back, bumping back,

00:29:38.440 this idea of an elusive balanced budget.

00:29:40.840 To throw a $15 billion a year expenditure in there and think the math is going to add up,

00:29:46.120 I highly doubt it.

00:29:47.560 I highly doubt it.

00:29:48.840 I've got to wrap things up.

00:29:49.960 A big thanks to all of you for tuning in.

00:29:52.040 If you are able to give us a hand in covering the stories the mainstream media is not,

00:29:56.920 head on over to tnc.news.

00:29:58.920 You can join the Andrew Lawton Heritage Club.

00:30:01.240 If you have any questions, shoot me an email, andrew at andrewlawton.ca.

00:30:05.400 We'll talk to you next week.

00:30:06.520 Thank you, God bless, and good day, Canada.

Juno News - June 13, 2019

LAWTON： More socialism？ Government panel wants universal pharmacare

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