Take-home cancer drugs will be covered for more Ontarians under OHIP if the New Democrats win the June 7 election, party leader Andrea Horwath said Monday, a promise that will cost the provincial treasury an estimated $42 million a year.

Sitting with two women who initially struggled with the cost of oral medications that have fewer side effects than hospital-based chemotherapy, Horwath said her plan would be open only to Ontarians who don’t enjoy coverage through their employers.

“We believe this is the best way forward,” she told reporters at Gilda’s Club, a downtown Toronto cancer support agency named after late actress Gilda Radner. “No more having to take the second-best solution.”

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Ontario’s health ministry covers the cost of intravenous cancer drugs administered in hospital and some take-home treatments, but patient groups have long been pushing Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government for more help on this front.

“Ontario’s kind of a laggard in this area,” said Robert Bick of the non-partisan cancer treatment lobby group CanCertainty, who noted British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have more extensive coverage plans.

Bick said the NDP effort would help “close the gap.”

Health Minister Helena Jaczek said in a statement that Horwath is underestimating the cost in an “empty” promise that could leave cancer patients disappointed.

“Expanding to the level proposed by the NDP could cost up to $300 million annually,” said the statement, which noted Ontario now spends $467 million a year on take-home cancer drugs and a new drug funding program that covers injectable chemotherapy for outpatients.

Ontarians who are not covered for take-home cancer drugs can now apply for help under an exceptional access program through their doctors.

Sharon Dennis of Niagara Falls, who was diagnosed with leukemia in 2001, said she initially faced a $5,100-a-month bill for the medication Bosulif before she could find an insurance company that would provide coverage and a pharmacy that could provide her medication by billing the insurance company directly.

“I didn’t have $5,100 a month to put out,” Dennis said in an interview, noting it took three months to sort out the arrangements. “It was a lot of stress.”

She remains on the medication because her leukemia has not gone into remission.

Another woman, Dani Taylor, who works at Gilda’s Club, said her family was looking at a substantial bill for the colorectal cancer medication Xeloda five years ago before coverage was found under the province’s Trillium drug plan for people facing catastrophic costs.

“I got lucky, but many, many Ontarians do not,” she told a news conference.

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The New Democrats have already promised to provide pharmacare for 125 of the most commonly used prescription medications for all Ontarians, regardless of age, by 2020 at a cost of $475 million annually.

Wynne’s Liberal government began providing coverage for 4,400 medications on the Ontario drug formulary under a new program called OHIP+ for eligible citizens under 25, and has promised to extend that to Ontarians over 65 next summer if re-elected. That would raise the annual cost of the program to $575 million.

Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford has not announced any pharmacare plans.

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