Ontario government fines Costco $7 million For Trying To Be Competitive – February 2, 2019

Interesting story that caught my attention regarding Ontario’s supply management system in health care. The Ontario Ministry of Health announced Friday, February 2, 2019, that it would be penalizing CWC Pharmacies (Ontario) Ltd. after it found that the company received illegal advertising payments before August 2015. Costco received $7.25 million for advertising services that the ministry says violate its terms for accepting rebates. According to a statement from Costco, the payments were from generic drug manufacturers to reduce dispensing fees and drug mark-ups, and it has agreed to pay the penalty fee.

There are a lot of cures for a lot of things in the world, but we have a protectionist government, we have shadowy individuals and entities that via legislation suppress a lot of cures for the world. Make no mistake about it, Canada does need laws, nobody disputes that, but what Canada has is a lot of price control laws in place, which in turn suppress innovation and competition. Now obviously when the Ontario government prohibits the operator of a pharmacy from accepting rebates from a drug manufacturer that has a product listed on the province’s drug database, there’s a price controlled reason for it.

Because on the surface it sounds stupid, but it’s important to understand that drug makers are incentivized to create drugs at inflated prices because I mean let’s be honest imagine if prices deflated? and God forbid there became a financial race to the bottom regarding pricing? Imagine if Ontarians lived in a province where prices didn’t inevitably inflate? imagine how that would change expectations and the psyche of consumers? Imagine the horrors from lobbyists groups and unions? Imagine the uproar with all the special interest groups who lobby the government to give them monopolies?

America is a pretty corrupt nation, but what’s starting to happen is that Canadians are starting to wake up to our own corruption, our economy makes little to no sense. It’s unbelievable how some of the laws we have in place. To learn more about why Costco was fined consider clicking the link below:

Ontario government fines Costco $7 million – The Canadian Press

Interesting times ahead