- November 16, 2024
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Flagler County employees will be able to get some of their medications from a Canadian company at no personal cost under an arrangement that lets the county take advantage of Canada’s system of socialized medicine.
The County Commission voted 4-0 at a special meeting Monday, June 15 to approve a contract with Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan-based international prescription company CanaRX after County Administrator Craig Coffey called the deal “a no-brainer.”
“I looked through the list of medications, and the savings there is just phenomenal,” County Commissioner Nate McLaughlin said at a workshop before the vote.. “And I think you have an obligation — if you can cut your expense, you cut your expense.”
McLaughlin asked CanaRX representative Mark Mousty how CanaRX can offer prices so much lower than those offered at pharmacies like Walgreens or CVS.
“It’s real simple: The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have socialized medicine,” Mousty replied. “And if we lived right across the border in Canada, the Canadian government dictates and negotiates directly with the pharmaceutical companies on how much they can sell their medications for to the citizens of those counties — Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, they’re all the same — and they negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies at what you see here, which is 50%, sometimes almost 80% savings over what we pay here as U.S. citizens in a nation that does not have any regulations or controls in place on what pharmaceutical companies can and do charge American citizens for the same meds.”
No one commented on the proposal during the workshop’s public comment period.
The drugs offered through CanaRX are name-brand medications purchased from licensed pharmacies in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and England, all nations with a “tier one” level of medical service comparable to the United States,’ Mousty said. About 40% of generic drugs sold in the U.S., he said, are manufactured abroad.
CanaRX will fill existing prescriptions that patients have been taking for at least 30 days, and uses a restricted formulary that does not include generic medications, narcotics, controlled substances, temperature-sensitive medications or highly-regulated medications.
The deal will cost the county nothing and require no enrollment fees for county employees, who would simply fill prescriptions through CanaRX instead of a local pharmacy. Medications would be dispensed in 90-day supplies.
Commissioner George Hanns had suggested the county look into getting drugs from Canadian sources last year after he heard about such arrangements at the Florida Association of Counties meeting, according to backup documentation provided for the meeting.
“This change will apply to prescription drugs that are not currently handled by our clinic,” it reads. “This will offer a unique opportunity to further save our employees money, save the county money and potentially allow employees to obtain a 90 day supply of their prescription drugs.”
