For anyone wondering this is at current time Provincially regulated.
Some provinces have regulations that require a person’s written consent if an insurance agreement restricts access to their pharmacy of choice, including Ontario. But according to the Ontario College of Pharmacists, when it comes to preferred provider contracts, “consent is given by the [patient] when they opt-in or enrol for benefits.”
The only province in Canada where these kinds of exclusivity deals are illegal is in Quebec. The province’s Bill 92 prohibits preferred pharmacy arrangements between pharmacies and insurance providers.
The idea is that an insurance company deals exclusively with one or several pharmacies in exchange for lower costs. Steve Morgan, a professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and an expert on pharmacare systems, said that “we don’t know exactly how much of the savings that are generated get passed on to the consumer at the end of the day.”
In the post yesterday the “experts” said the good side of this must means the system is working at this indicates Loblaws gave them a competitive deal.
Even if you pretend that the saving will be passed consumer on the short term. There’s no way this ends up well for us once the competition dies out.
I think the best strategy is to put name of ceos and decision makers instead of companies name. Because these people don’t care about anything other than their money…
It’s hard to get worse than privately operated medical facilities, who’s primary function is to turn a profit, but payment is controlled by a decades old system of government bloat.
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