Canadian Rx drug bill "rising 10% a year"

Canada's prescription drug bill accounts for around 15% of the country'stotal health care spending, and is forecast to have totaled C$11.4 billion ($7.73 billion) last year, up from an estimated total of C$10.3 billion in 1999, according to a new, federally-commissioned report conducted by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

The report also says that the drugs bill grew 344% over 15 years, from C$2.6 billion in 1985 to C$9.3 billion in 1998, and that over this period, the share paid by government had fallen from 43.4% to 41.4%. By 1998, 34.6% was provided by insurance companies and 24% by patients themselves.

The report says that the rise in spending on prescription drugs is due to a number of causes, including the growing number of elderly patients, the increased prevalence of conditions which require prescription drug use, such as cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, gastrointestinal problems, AIDS and hepatitis, and the launch onto the market of new treatments which offer only slight improvements over existing medications but at a much higher price.