Budget 2014 triggers Harper’s plan to dismantle national health care
By Michael McBane, The Hill Times, February 17, 2014Federal transfer payments to provinces were first used in order to establish national standards in
Buried on page 279 of the 2014 federal budget is a measure that will make it next to impossible for provinces to provide health care services on equal terms and conditions. The purpose of this budget item is to strike a blow to the heart and soul of universal health care in Canada.
The Harper government is eliminating the equalization portion of the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and replacing it with an equal per capita transfer. This means that less populous provinces with relatively larger and more isolated populations will have more and more difficulty delivering more expensive universal health services.
Likewise, provinces with relatively larger proportion of older residents will also be hampered in delivering universal quality care. The move to an equal per capita cash transfer will widen the gap between the have and the have-not provinces and make it next to impossible to maintain national standards in health care.
It is estimated by the Premiers that this one budgetary move will create a funding gap for the have-not provinces of $16.5 billion over the next 5 years. The only province to benefit from this change is Alberta, with its growing, younger population.
Justice Emmett Hall, a principal architect of national health care in Canada, articulated the platform required to realize a national health care system. In order to establish and achieve high national standards for health services, the federal government needed to establish a funding formula that took into account the capacity of provinces (and territories) to achieve national standards. In other words: no equalization in health transfers, no national Medicare.
http://healthcoalition.ca/budget-2014-triggers-harpers-plan-to-dismantle-national-health-care/
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