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Most striking is the sharp decline in the proportion of employees covered by a defined benefit workplace pension plan, which fell from 33.3 per cent to 25.2 per cent. This is a good indicator of the downward pressure on workplace benefits, which arises from rising costs, as is also the case with prescription drugs.

It seems highly probable that the proportion of workers covered by employer drug plans has been falling, and that the quality of these plans is eroding. The labour movement strongly supports a national pharmacare program not just to provide coverage to those who lack it, but also to reduce cost pressures on employers that work against increasing wages at the bargaining table. When companies provide drug plans, they have less income to allocate for wages for their workers.

Employers should also support a national pharmacare program that would reduce drug costs and shift them away from payroll costs. Total benefit costs, including pensions, can account for as much as one-third of total payroll costs for larger unionized employers. It is widely recognized that publicly funded medicare gives Canadian companies a significant cost advantage over American competitors.

Yet business lobby groups seem to fall in behind the vested interests of the life and health insurance and pharmaceutical industries when it come to a national pharmacare program.

The introduction of a universal, single-payer, pharmacare system has many good arguments to commend it. One of the most powerful, though least mentioned, is that the current employer-based benefit system is eroding. We should deal with that problem rather than pretending it doesn’t exist. National pharmacare is needed as soon as possible before even more Canadians find themselves lacking the means to afford the drugs they and their families desperately need.

Ed Broadbent is the Chair of the Broadbent Institute, an Ottawa think-tank. Andrew Jackson is the institute’s Senior Policy Adviser.

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