As the Federal government tries to move away from automatic annual increases of 6 per cent to federal health transfer payments to provinces, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is finding opposition to changing the status quo. Flaherty has proposed replacing the 6 per cent increases with a formula that ties future increases to nominal GDP growth, to ensure future healthcare funding is sustainable.
While Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews, Nova Scotia's Premier Darrell Dexter, and others cited the federal government's need to fund it's "responsibilities," it became clear the memory of the great Tommy Douglas was not top of mind.
The founder of Canada's universal healthcare system also served as Premier of Saskatchewan for 17 years and delivered balanced or surplus budgets throughout that time period, while expanding his province's social safety net.
What Tommy Douglas recognized, and has been lost on Canadian premiers who have followed, is that government must live within its means and can't allow government debt to balloon in the pursuit of providing services to citizens.
It does not take inspired leadership to increase spending year after year at rates higher than revenue growth in defense of social programs. Leadership is finding creative solutions to improve frontline delivery, while curtailing cost increases, or recognizing that current service delivery models are valuable enough to tax sufficiently to pay for them.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's expensive eight year deficit-financed delivery of social programs has recently resulted in Moody's downgrading Ontario's debt to "negative." While Ontario attempts to tame its deficit, the Premier has stated neither healthcare or education spending will be subject to cuts, putting 68 per cent of budgetary expenses off limits. That's over 76 per cent if you include the interest payments on Ontario's debt that represent eight per cent of the budget alone.
In reality, it isn't the refusal for governments to rely on deficit spending to provide services we can no longer afford that imperils our social programs, but the refusal to even discuss opportunities to increase government revenue to support the programs we all hold dear in the absence of cuts.
Challenging economic times and our looming demographic time bomb give our leaders the perfect opportunity to begin having an honest conversation about how best to make the social services Canadians rely on sustainable. Tommy Douglas never mortgaged a generation's future to pay for the services of the day, and neither should Canada's current premiers.
Jim Flaherty's plan for sustainable healthcare funding based on the government's revenue, not a rigid formula, is one approach and places him in closer company with Tommy Douglas than those who are opposing the shift.
The other obvious approach that no politician is flogging at present would be raising taxes to protect the programs they refuse to cut. If neither decreasing spending or increasing revenue is acceptable, our social programs are doomed to become structurally unsustainable with time, something no one wants to see happen.
Many would agree Canada's healthcare system is worth preserving and while it may be easy to attack Jim Flaherty for suggesting one approach, until someone stands up with another approach to address the core problem, it remains the only constructive effort to address the status quo.
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Jim Flaherty on health care, in his own words | Warren Kinsella
When a politician tells you he is improving something, look out!
What makes you think that Flaherty has any intention of saving health care? You may have noticed that the Harper government inherited a modest surplus. Fortunately, in the fall of 2008 along came the fallout from the rampant corruption in the global banking industry and they had an excuse to turn that pesky surplus into a record deficit, which they now need to fix by 'saving' all those things neocons hate.
If we want to increase government revenue, there is a very simple solution. End the globalization scams.
Yes, to save medicare we will need to quit flattering ourselves with the delusion that we can simultaneously expand public services and cut taxes while running a deficit that outstrips economic growth. We will actually have to become a country, instead of an agglomeration of angry overfed cottagers blaming anyone more than three sets of shades away from us for being responsible for our frustrations with our lot in life.
If you want to talk about not mortgaging the needs of the future against the petty wants of the present, why don't we introduce an estate tax in Canada, like most developed nations have? Why don't we have a higher top-bracket rate? Why don't we do what such raving leftist radicals as Donald Flemming did and finance about half of our treasury securities through the Bank of Canada?
Yes, if we continue to allow health spending to increase at 6 percent per year while our economy grows at a nominal rate of 3.1% why, in twenty years, health spending will balloon to about 17% of GDP from its present 10%.
So after factoring in the Bank of Canada's inflation target of 2% (though it's allowed to drift between 1 and 3 percent) we'll only be able to spend $48,730.65 per person in 2011 dollars in 2031 on everything else as opposed to $42,637.99 today! That's negative six-thousand fewer dollars in every Canadian's pocket every year! (For those of you not following, that means six-thousand more.)
Hospital equipment costs are ridiculous. They get charged cost plus.
http://secure.campaigner.com/Campaigner/Public/t.show?PNNY--BJK1-T0Lo49
Our medical system was designed during the time when the B of C functioned properly and the Federal Government was responsible for half the costs and each Province the rest. I think they only pay about 14% of the cost now.
Here's one approach.
Stop cutting federal and provincial business tax rates. At the federal level, business tax rates have fallen from 25% to 18%, and as of January 1, 2012, they will fall to 14%. Provincial rates in Ontario have fallen from 14% to a current 11.5% and are schduled to fall to 10% by mid 2013.
Combined these are the lowest business tax rates of any country in the first world.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in give aways to every obscenely profitable corporation in Canada.
Of course there are deficits. Of course!
When capitalist governments refuse to tax businesses, they can then cry and whine that the poor, the sick, must, absolutely must tighten their belts.
The next time you hear such nonsense, remembert who isn't tightening anything.
Get a CAT scan.
My issue is when our leaders are afraid to talk about increasing revenue, and refuse to discuss decreasing expenses, because that imperials government programming.
Tommy Douglas offered healthcare, grow his provinces safety nets all while achieving a balanced budget (and sometimes even a surplus) ...
Maybe a part of that is because his provinces wasn't spending money hand over first subsidizing already profitable, private companies ?
Stick to what you're good at, complaining about windmills.
Would you favour a tax increase to ensure health spending could sustainably grow 6% a year forever, or are you more a fan of allowing healthcare spending to simply overtake the budget, which will then force massive cuts later?
Thanks for the compliment regarding my efforts on industrial wind turbines, that said, I am not, and never have suggested I am a one trick pony.
Is that your argument?
Would the spending increases you're concerned about on military, justice and 'message' provide sufficient resources to allow 6% annual growth for healthcare spending forever if re-allocated? Something tells me your math doesn't add up.
It is easy to attack Flaherty, but without providing hard facts that actually focus on the issue of sustaining our healthcare system it does nothing to further the sustaining of healthcare in Canada.
Regardless of your views on the Federal Conservatives, they are the only ones proposing anything that can ensure we don't bankrupt ourselves and our healthcare system.
I don't want to wake up one day and find out that Canada is the new Greece and we've got to get rid of our social programs to avoid national bankruptcy. Do you see anyone else doing anything to avoid this? I don't, and frankly I wish someone was brave enough to step forward with another plan, but that hasn't happened yet.
Let's hope Flaherty's proposal will force others to come up with ideas of their own, it's long overdue.
But comparing Tommy Douglas to flaherty is beyond all comprehension.
That is like comparing Desmond Tutu to Pol Pot .
What I REALLY want to know is how you manage to get a blog on a supposedly left-of-centre website.