Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen says a new deal to reduce the cost of some generic drugs will apply to private citizens as well as the government. The federal, provincial and territorial governments announced earlier this week they negotiated a reduction of 25-40 percent in the price of almost 70 of the most commonly prescribed generic drugs. Goertzen says this will save Manitoba $8.5 million a year, noting the province spends $57 million a year on generic drugs. He gives an example of some of the medications.

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Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen"For example, ones that people might be used to are Prozac or Lipitor, drugs that deal with depression, drugs that deal with high blood pressure. Certainly, it's a cost saving for the province. We have a pharmacare program here. It will save the province that $8.5 million but it also saves Manitobans who maybe don't have private insurance through Blue Cross and they have to pay up until they get through to that deductible level on the pharmacare program, they'll be saving money as well when they're purchasing those drugs."

Goertzen says this is part of the government's ongoing quest to try and keep health care spending down. He adds they are making a similar effort in other areas of healthcare.

"What we've said recently, in the last several months is if it's going well when it comes to the negotiation on drugs, what about equipment because every province buys medical equipment from hospital beds to high-priced equipment like MRIs which can cost a couple of million dollars, what if we got together at looked at group purchasing for that. Together with the Health Minister from Alberta, we're leading that discussion and I think as the months go by, we'll have more to say on that."

The lower generic drug prices are scheduled to take effect April 1st.

The full list of drugs affected by the change is at this link.