It's the '90s all over again in health care
Anyone who's had the misfortune to have a loved one spend time in hospital recently knows only too well that our health-care system is on the ropes.
Hospitals can't ask patients to pay for vital health services, so they ding them for everything else--from parking to extra services like semi-private wards.
Now federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has put the provinces on notice that they won't be getting the 6% annual increase in health funding to which they're addicted.
Both the feds and Ontario are running massive deficits. If they want to wrestle those under control, they'll have to attack the big-ticket items--such as health.
In future, Flaherty indicated, the increase will be tied to GDP growth.
This has provincial Health Minister Deb Matthews in high dudgeon.
"There are a lot of demands on the healthcare system," Matthews told reporters Tuesday. "Every day there's a conversation about what more we need to be doing, not what less we need to be doing."
She said when the publicly funded healthcare system started, it was envisioned it would be paid for with a 50:50 cost sharing split with the federal government.
The federal figure's now at 23%, she said.
Except, hold on a second. If you look back to 2004, when Liberal Paul Martin was prime minister, you'll find the provinces were making similar claims.
Back then, though, the claim was that the feds were funding only 16 cents on the dollar for health.
That claim about 50:50 cost sharing? Never happened, according to a Martin-era web page.
"The federal government never cost-shared 50% of all provincial health-care spending, and since 1977 has provided block-funding support to provincial health care and post-secondary education spending through a combination of cash and tax transfers," says a 2004 posting on the federal finance ministry website.
Martin's a Liberal. Would he lie? Oh, right. During the 1990s, Martin and his predecessor, Jean Chretien, scaled back funding to the provinces.
They slashed $6 billion in transfers--and Mike Harris and Ernie Eves were slammed by provincial Liberals for "taking an axe to health care." What option did they have?
Tory health critic Christine Elliott (who, ironically, is Flaherty's wife) agrees that 6% increases are unsustainable.
She said the indications are that economist Don Drummond, whom the provincial government has commissioned to find ways to cut its spending, will say as much when he releases his report in January.
"We're not getting good value for our healthcare dollars right now. If we innovate, we will be able to find those savings and we should be able to keep the increases lower than 6%," Elliott told reporters.
So, let's all take a deep breath and consider:
Our health system is under pressure. We need to find ways to put money into it--apart from gouging patients and visitors every time they park.
What Martin, Chretien, Harris and Eves did in the 1990s was brutal, but it saved us from the kind of debt crisis Europe is facing now. The health system cannot be all things to all people.
We must find other sources of revenue for health care, other running up more big deficits or hitting up the overstressed taxpayer. We must decide which services are truly important and which ones we are prepared to give up.
Tough choices, sure.
If you want the alternative, though, look no farther than Greece.
It's the '90s all over again in health care | Christina Blizzard | Columnists | Comment | London Free Press
Anyone who's had the misfortune to have a loved one spend time in hospital recently knows only too well that our health-care system is on the ropes.
Hospitals can't ask patients to pay for vital health services, so they ding them for everything else--from parking to extra services like semi-private wards.
Now federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has put the provinces on notice that they won't be getting the 6% annual increase in health funding to which they're addicted.
Both the feds and Ontario are running massive deficits. If they want to wrestle those under control, they'll have to attack the big-ticket items--such as health.
In future, Flaherty indicated, the increase will be tied to GDP growth.
This has provincial Health Minister Deb Matthews in high dudgeon.
"There are a lot of demands on the healthcare system," Matthews told reporters Tuesday. "Every day there's a conversation about what more we need to be doing, not what less we need to be doing."
She said when the publicly funded healthcare system started, it was envisioned it would be paid for with a 50:50 cost sharing split with the federal government.
The federal figure's now at 23%, she said.
Except, hold on a second. If you look back to 2004, when Liberal Paul Martin was prime minister, you'll find the provinces were making similar claims.
Back then, though, the claim was that the feds were funding only 16 cents on the dollar for health.
That claim about 50:50 cost sharing? Never happened, according to a Martin-era web page.
"The federal government never cost-shared 50% of all provincial health-care spending, and since 1977 has provided block-funding support to provincial health care and post-secondary education spending through a combination of cash and tax transfers," says a 2004 posting on the federal finance ministry website.
Martin's a Liberal. Would he lie? Oh, right. During the 1990s, Martin and his predecessor, Jean Chretien, scaled back funding to the provinces.
They slashed $6 billion in transfers--and Mike Harris and Ernie Eves were slammed by provincial Liberals for "taking an axe to health care." What option did they have?
Tory health critic Christine Elliott (who, ironically, is Flaherty's wife) agrees that 6% increases are unsustainable.
She said the indications are that economist Don Drummond, whom the provincial government has commissioned to find ways to cut its spending, will say as much when he releases his report in January.
"We're not getting good value for our healthcare dollars right now. If we innovate, we will be able to find those savings and we should be able to keep the increases lower than 6%," Elliott told reporters.
So, let's all take a deep breath and consider:
Our health system is under pressure. We need to find ways to put money into it--apart from gouging patients and visitors every time they park.
What Martin, Chretien, Harris and Eves did in the 1990s was brutal, but it saved us from the kind of debt crisis Europe is facing now. The health system cannot be all things to all people.
We must find other sources of revenue for health care, other running up more big deficits or hitting up the overstressed taxpayer. We must decide which services are truly important and which ones we are prepared to give up.
Tough choices, sure.
If you want the alternative, though, look no farther than Greece.
It's the '90s all over again in health care | Christina Blizzard | Columnists | Comment | London Free Press