Facing cancer costs
How will we afford high-cost cancer therapies?

The challenge
Brent Zanke, MD, PhD, FRCPC

The war on cancer has proven to be protracted and expensive. Real advances in chemotherapy over the last decade have juxtaposed burgeoning populations of sufferers and unprecedented prices, resulting in public payment for only the most effective agents. Private payment for effective but unfunded agents is fueling a growing debate over a perceived increasing trend towards privatization.
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The legal obligation for government funding
Pamela C. Spencer, BSocSc, LLB, MHSc

Is there a legal obligation for the Ontario government to fund effective high-cost cancer drug therapies that are not funded through the existing provincial and/or hospital formularies? “Effective” cancer drug therapies refers to those that are generally accepted by the medical community as the recommended form of treatment, when no equally effective alternative is available. It is assumed that these therapies have received Health Canada regulatory approval. This issue is especially topical given the questions that have been raised concerning the application of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General) (Chaoulli) to guarantee patient access to healthcare services in general, and, more particularly, the role of provincial health plans in providing timely access to effective therapies that treat or prevent serious illness or death.
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