Increased spending on prescription drugs can help to contain other health costs.

As Canada’s population continues to age, medical innovation will play an essential role in helping to contain overall health costs. Medical innovation takes many forms: new surgical procedures, new drugs, better knowledge about illness and disease that leads to healthier lifestyle choices. All of these innovations have a profound effect on improving health outcomes and shifting the costs of healthcare from more costly inpatient services to more cost-effective outpatient services.

A comparison of per capita health spending among Canada’s four largest provinces shows that those provinces that have had the highest increase in spending on drugs have had the lowest increase in total health spending.

Ensuring access to effective new medicines not only allows patients who rely on provincially funded drug plans to benefit from innovative pharmaceuticals it may also help provinces contain overall health costs.