Ever wished you didn’t have to make those monthly payments to the MSP or that your prescription drugs didn’t cost so much? You may want to look into getting assistance through the MSP Premium Assistance program and/or Fair PharmaCare.
MSP Premium Assistance is available to Canadian citizens and landed immigrants who have been resident in BC for the last 12 months. Subsidies range from 20 to 100% based on your household net income in the last tax year. As a single student earning only enough to cover regular living expenses, it’s been a great help to me since second year to not pay the monthly $60.50 for the MSP.
Fair PharmaCare is also available to all British Columbians (not just those on MSP Premium Assistance). To be eligible, you need to have MSP and submitted your tax returns from two years ago; subsidies are again based on your household net income. You can easily register online. Anyone who’s ever had to have prescriptions, regular or not, knows they can be quite expensive without a subsidy. Today, I just got a prescription filled for me that came to $1.20 after PharmaCare assistance. Thank goodness!
Unfortunately, I don’t know what you can do if you haven’t reached the one or two year residency requirement (or if you didn’t file your taxes — really, file them). If anyone has suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them.
In the meantime, I’m going to collapse on my bed again. Winter is not good to me.
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