The Government of Manitoba is going to start covering prescription birth control on October 1st, 2024. This is great news for women, girls, and gender-diverse people who need contraceptives, and it will address the number one barrier people have to accessing birth control: cost.
We’re celebrating this announcement as a win for gender and reproductive justice in Manitoba, and we’re continuing to press for national pharmacare so people across the country can enjoy this same access to life-saving and life-improving medicine.
The national Pharmacare Act is almost through the parliamentary process, and is expected to get royal ascent in October 2024. This national program will provide prescription birth control and diabetes medications and devices free of charge, as soon as provincial governments agree to implement the program, and will expand to cover other medicines in the future.
Canadians have never needed pharmacare as badly as we do right now. For decades, the price of medicines has been creeping upwards as pharmaceutical corporations continue to interfere in Health Canada’s decision-making and prevent any price controls from being introduced. This results in almost one in four people in Canada (22%) splitting pills, rationing insulin, and crowdfunding to cover their medicine expenses because they can’t afford to take their meds as prescribed.
A national pharmacare program would make prescription medications available to people at the pharmacy free of charge, and it would enable Canada to make a bulk purchasing strategy so we could get better prices on essential medicines and negotiate better prices with suppliers. This would save money – and lives – across the health care system.
Countries like Spain, France, and Germany – all of which have some form of national pharmacare – pay significantly lower prices for medicine than we do in Canada, precisely because of their ability to engage in bulk purchasing.
Manitoba’s announcement is a step in the right direction, and this offering will be improved when national pharmacare is introduced and we can bulk purchase essential medicines.
