Thank you very much.

Mr. Julian, I share your concern. When I hear witnesses say that the system's working very well, I ask, “For whom is it working very well?” We just heard from Mike Bleskie. It doesn't sound like the system's working very well for him. It seems to be working for industry and for insurance companies, but it's not working well for all Canadians. That's why this pharmacare act is so important. We must get Bill C-64 through.

Also, we heard that the Canada Health Act, in the view of industry, creates uncertainty. I would differ. I think the Canada Health Act is very important. For 40 years, it's made a guarantee that Canadians, when they need medical care, will get it, not based on who they work for, what insurance program they have or how much money they have, but because they need it. I'm very passionate that the CHA creates certainty for Canadians, and we want that system. We don't want a U.S. system.

When I hear frontline workers talk, and they do.... We had 100 frontline health care workers come here in February. They met with many members of this committee, and I express my gratitude for all of you who took time out to meet them at a very busy time. These are people who are working with all kinds of issues in their hospitals and in their health care environments, but they took time to come to Ottawa to talk about the importance of pharmacare with all the challenges that they face in the health care system.

Do you know why? What I hear them say is that filled prescriptions mean empty emergency rooms. They know that if people are getting their medications, if they're not cutting their meds, if they're not making choices today on whether to take their medicine or not, they don't end up presenting themselves with far worse conditions in the emergency wards. That's where a lot of cost savings can come in that we're not hearing about.

Of course there are cost savings for individuals. Of course there are cost savings through bulk purchasing; we can get those prices down to the median of OECD countries because they're so high, but there are also savings in the health care system.

St. Michael's Hospital did a study. It took 700 patients who had trouble economically in paying for their medication, and these patients went out into the world after they were diagnosed. The hospital mailed free medication to half of them. The other half it just let fend for themselves, based on that system that we were talking about a minute ago, however that system works out. Well, they found that those people who had free medication provided to them did far better. They recovered faster. In fact, they could even put a number on it; every patient who received free medication saved the system $1,600 per year. That's an important factor in looking at how we can save money in a national universal single-payer program.

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