Well if this isn’t another reason to consider moving to Canada, then I don’t know what is.
Mike Sullivan, president of Cubic Health and also an insider in the benefits industry, has the scoop. Apparently he was at a meeting that included clients who represent private companies with benefit plans, covering around three million Canadian workers. What was the number one topic of discussion for the group? Medical cannabis.
Sullivan was speaking at a cannabis business conference on May 25th in Toronto when he said, “This group that was in attendance, the No. 1 topic of discussion was medical cannabis.”
“That’s what everybody wanted to talk about — but not in a negative way: there’s a lot of support for looking at this and examining it in a thoughtful, responsible way.”
“Insurance company actuaries cannot get their head around how to price the risk of medical cannabis,” he said.
Jonathan Zaid, executive director of Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana remarked, “We hear wide-ranging anecdotal reports that are extremely positive from patients, saying that they’re going back to work, they’re having better family and social lives, they’re happier, their symptoms are more manageable, and they’re often going off of other pharmaceutical drugs which are all insured.”
There is already several self-insured Canadian healt benefit plans in the country that cover medical marijuana in some circumstances and Veterans Affairs Canada is also reimbursing military veterans for medical marijuana as well.
Canada is on course to legalize marijuana recreationally sometime next year.
