On price signals

It's laughable enough for Tony Clement to pretend to be concerned about prescription drug prices based on his gratuitous nine-figure giveaway to brand-name drug companies. But his latest gem gives the most clear indication yet that the Cons are eager to hand those companies all the extra income they can, regardless of the resulting effect on health-care costs:

According to Health Canada documents obtained by PoliticsWatch under the Access to Information Act, one of the ideas the NPS is considering is action to influence "the prescribing behaviour of health care professionals."

When asked by PoliticsWatch if such a system should recommend doctors not prescribe generic drugs when the price is too high, Clement said, "if the provinces and territories want to do that, I encourage it."

"I don't have a direct relationship with medical professionals. That's not my job as federal minister of health."

One would hope that Clement has at least enough knowledge about the health-care system to recognize that generic drugs are inevitably cheaper than the brand-name alternative - after all, there's no reason why a generic manufacturer would bother producing a drug otherwise. Which means that his comment amounts to encouragement for the provinces to deliberately inflate costs further in an effort to punish generic drug manufacturers.

Of course, there's a serious need for reduced drug costs in both the generic and brand-name departments. But it should be obvious that neither is likely to improve if health care professionals are pressured to prescribe the more expensive kind of drug. And from Clement's position, it's all too clear that he's more interested in looking for excuses to funnel even more money toward Big Pharma than in actually reducing prescription drug costs.