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There was much to discuss in this alternate universe. While “universal health care” is a rather odd concept without universal pharmacare attached, the idea has its skeptics. Not every “universal pharmacare” plan yields superior outcomes. And there’s a case to be made that Canada does fairly well already.

A 2014 Commonwealth Fund report found eight per cent of Canadians with below-average income reported not filling a prescription or skipping doses because of the cost; of the countries surveyed only Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom fared better, while New Zealand (18 per cent) and the Netherlands (20 per cent) fared far worse. As a percentage of household spending, Canadians spend less out-of-pocket on medical expenses than the OECD average. As a share of the country’s total expenditures on prescription drugs, Canadians are out of pocket far less than the OECD average: 26 per cent, versus 43 per cent in Norway.

It’s all in the details. A simple example (if an unlikely and extreme one): if the statutory dispensing fee for your “free” prescription exceeds the current cost, you’re worse off. And so we would discuss, debate, deliberate! The health committee would fly in experts from various jurisdictions to discuss dos and don’ts. MPPs would soberly study the UK’s endless debate over “quality-adjusted life years” — the politically toxic calculation used to determine which treatments to fund and which not — and wonder what they got themselves into.