Canada to make contraception for women free

Canada will cowl the complete value of contraception for ladies, the federal government mentioned Saturday because it highlighted the primary a part of a significant well being care reform.

The federal government can pay for probably the most extensively used strategies to keep away from being pregnant, akin to IUDs, contraceptive capsules, hormonal implants or the day after capsule, for the 9 million Canadian women of reproductive age, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland mentioned at a press convention in a pharmacy in Toronto.

“Ladies must be free to decide on the contraceptives they want with out value getting in the way in which. So, we’re making contraceptives free,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mentioned on X, previously Twitter.

This announcement fleshes out the primary a part of a invoice unveiled in February that, as soon as accomplished, would mark the most important enlargement of Canada’s publicly funded health care system in many years.

This new regime may also cowl the price of diabetes medicine for some 3.7 million Canadians.

The price of the brand new system and timing of the launch haven’t been introduced.

Extra medication might be added to this system as it’s rolled out over the approaching years.

A current OECD report utilizing 2021 information discovered Canada spends extra per capita on medicines than all however three member international locations—Japan, Germany and america.

The federal government should now win the approval of Canada’s provinces, which really administer well being care, for this new system. Alberta and Quebec have already mentioned they might decide out.

The pharmacare plan—as it’s referred to as regionally—follows protracted negotiations between Trudeau’s Liberal minority authorities and a small leftist faction in parliament.

The New Democratic Occasion agreed to prop up the Liberals till the autumn of 2025, on the situation that the federal government instantly launch the drug program.

© 2024 AFP