Cost-related nonadherence to prescription drugs, total out-of-pocket payments and total pharmaceutical expenditure per capita for Canada, Quebec and 9 comparable high-income countries with universal health insurance*
| Jurisdiction | Cost-related nonadherence: % of adult population reporting they did not fill a prescription or skipped doses because of the cost in 2016 | Out-of-pocket costs: % of adult population reporting their household spent $1000 or more in out-of-pocket costs in 2007 | Total pharmaceutical expenditure per capita in 2014, Canadian dollars (purchasing power parity), $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quebec | 8.8 | 8.7 | 1087 |
| Rest of Canada | 10.7 | 4.8 | 912 |
| Population-weighted average for Canada | 10.2 | 5.7 | 952 |
| Australia | 6.3 | 5.3 | 753† |
| New Zealand | 5.7 | 2.4 | 369‡ |
| Norway | 3.4 | – | 564 |
| Sweden | 5.7 | – | 603 |
| United Kingdom | 2.1 | 1.2 | 598 |
| Population-weighted average for universal public systems | 3.6 | – | 621 |
| France | 3.9 | – | 809 |
| Germany | 3.2 | 2.8 | 900 |
| Netherlands | 4.4 | 0.9 | 494 |
| Switzerland | 8.9 | – | 914 |
| Population-weighted average for social insurance systems | 3.8 | – | 826 |
↵* Authors’ calculations based on the Commonwealth Fund’s 2016 International Health Policy Survey; the Commonwealth Fund’s 2007 International Health Policy Survey; Statistics Canada’s 2007 Survey of Household Spending; and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Health Data 2016 data sets.13–15
↵† Projected from 2013 based on growth rates in other comparator countries.
↵‡ Projected from 2007 based on growth rates in other comparator countries.