BC eliminating prescription deductibles for people earning under $30,000
Posted February 9, 2018 11:47 am.
Last Updated February 9, 2018 9:44 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VICTORIA – BC has announced plans to eliminate or reduce prescription-drug deductibles for low-income earners.
Health Minister Adrian Dix says single people and families with a net household income under $45,000 will benefit from changes to the Fair PharmaCare plan starting Jan. 1, 2019.
Families earning between $15,000 and $30,000 will no longer pay any deductibles for medication.
Dix says people with a net annual income of $15,000 have paid deductibles of $300, and those earnings $30,000 have had to shell out $900 a year.
He says the cost means people have sometimes not filled prescriptions in order to pay for other essentials such as groceries.
Green party spokeswoman Sonia Furstenau says the $105-million investment in Fair PharmaCare will improve the health of families facing an affordability crisis.
Adrienne Montani with First Call, a child advocacy group, says medicine is too expensive for many households.
“Talking to families they’ll say ‘My heart medication costs this much and I can’t afford it, so I go without.’ Or medicine isn’t given to children sometimes. People try to stretch out the medication to make it last longer or take less of it.”
She says it’s unfortunate the family income threshold for full coverage wasn’t higher, noting the poverty-line cut-off for a family of four is $36,000.
“Given today’s cost of living, it would be nice to make medication free for households who make under $45,000. The cost of living makes that level income pretty low, especially if you’re raising kids.”
The government says the elimination or reduction of deductibles will benefit about 240,000 families.
