You might have seen this little blurb in the Toronto Star about Tommy Douglas’s daughter claiming that Stephen Harper is eroding the health care system. She reportedly said that while Harper would never admit he’s against the system, the evidence shows that the system is “being starved to death.”
First of all, let’s get some facts straight on this story. Total spending on health care in Canada reached roughly $191.6 billion in 2010, up by $9.5 billion (5.2 per cent) from 2009, according the Canadian Institute for Health Information. This represented a year-over-year increase of $216 per Canadian, bringing total health expenditure per capita to an estimated $5,614. As recently as 2008, Canada was fifth in the OECD for health care spending per capita.
When Tommy Douglas’s vision of Medicare was brought into being in 1962 by Woodrow Lloyd, the federal government offered a plan to fund 50 per cent of hospital costs. By 1966 that became a 50-50 arrangement between the federal government and the provinces. Since that time, and most notably during the Liberal majority governments during the 90s, health care transfer payments has dropped to about 16 per cent.
Spending as a per cent of GDP increased most between 1975 and 1992, rising from seven to 10 per cent in that time. Liberal cutbacks and changes to provincial transfer payments, particularly with the creation of the confusing Canada Health and Social Transfer system in 1996, resulted in a decline in spending.
Put into historical perspective, Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government in 1975 spent $12.2 billion on health care, or roughly $527 per person. In Brian Mulroney’s second year in office that number had increased to $49.8 billion ($1,541.70). At the Liberal handover of power in 2005, total health care spending was $140 billion ($4,333.30). So in just four years the Harper government has increased year-over-year spending by $10.32 billion, or an additional $1,280.70 for every man, woman and child in Canada.
I’m far from one to defend Stephen Harper’s spending habits, but it would seem to me that 27 per cent increase to the total health care spending in Canada over five years is a rather significant improvement, and far from being “starved to death.” Starving the system would have been to increase spending by a nominal increase in the inflationary adjustments.
Let’s not forget that the Canada Health Act is very clear in keeping health care a provincial jurisdiction. How the provinces manage their money is entirely up to the financial responsibility of the provincial leadership at the time. In 2007, the largest cost of health care spending was in hospital costs, eating 28.6 per cent of the whole; physician salaries took up 13.1 per cent; and prescription drugs accounted for 16.5 per cent.
According to the 2010 federal budget, $24.8 billion went to the provinces in the form of health transfer payments, second only to social security. An additional $2.9 billion was transferred in provincial program expenses. (It might be worthy to note that Canada spent $20.9 billion on national defence).
Health care spending accounts for between 37 per cent to 50 per cent of provincial budgets now, and that number continues to rise as the provinces depend on larger transfer payments from Ottawa. The logical solution, then, would be to amend the Canada Health Act to allow for a more flexible delivery of health care at the provincial level and remove the dependence on the federal government to control the problem.
THANK YOU for posting this. Health care spending has indeed increased under the Harper government. Whether one agrees or disagrees with this, I am just sick and tired of hearing the left plain LIE about the Conservative record. It’s disgusting.
So a mediocre actress criticises our Prime Minister and TorStar thinks it is newsworthy…lol
Just because she lost the genetic pool???
Just listened to Iggy’s response to Harper’s press conference on Libya. My Gawd, what an unmitigated ass he is! Even went so far as to suggest this statement intentionally comes on the same day as Election Canada’s charges against the CPC. This #@$^&$# clown has about as much class as a one room school!
Thanks for the TRUTH….too bad Toronto Star readers won’t hear the truth , just the BS.
On Ignatieff today…The Liberal Party of Canada(Ignatieff) along with the media(CBC) don’t care who gets hurt, as long as they get what they want.
Using the Libya crisis as partisan politics, is sickening, along with the ones doing it.
What is also not mentioned is how much is spent on nanny state advertisement , the many activist boards now funded by the federal government telling us how to eat,exercise,drink in moderation, not smoke,limit our salt intake,the signs of impending heart attacks, diabetes,obesity, alzheimers and on and on and on. It also omits the ever increasing amount paid to big pharma now at 28 billion per year on drugs that are pushed by doctors because the have incentives to push them, although many are no better than generics. There are many ways to cut health care costs without degrading the core values but that would mean opening a can of worms most politicians are afraid to touch.
My granfather was given a pacemaker at age 86 although he had severe alzheimers. He lived another 8 years as a mental vegetable. Wonder what that cost the system ? All too common.
I am as far from being a fan of CINO PM Harper as there is and it is my opinion that he will not live long enough to cause the damage to Canada that that communist Tommy Douglas and the CCF that evolved into the NDP have done to Canada. The Libs are trying hard to catch up to them but still have a ways to go.
She’s correct about the “starving” bit. Although, I’d call it rationing.
But it has nothing what so ever to do with Harper. It’s the natural outcome of system itself that does that.
When politicians and bureaucrats are put into control of the health care system, the health care system then comes under the influence of political and bureaucratic pressures.
The quick fix for the most serious problems of our health care system, things like “wait times and doctor shortages” can be easily fixed by spending more money. That money has to come out of some ones stash and that is where the proverbial SHTF.
Most people don’t want to pony up more of their money to pay for other peoples health problems, and sorry to say it, but that’s a pretty normal outlook. And what about all the big corporations, do they want pay more taxes for health care spending? Especially when you consider that many of them have private U.S. health care insurance? Could they not also be against higher health care spending because it’s competition for the available money that people have to spend?
The real problem of our health care system is that it may be free, but it’s not free of self interest
When everyone pays into our free health care system, everyone also gets a say. And that is precisely the problem.
Free ??. When has it ever been free ?. 40 % of the taxes we pay go into health care and related entitlements. Most Canadians feel it’s their right but perhaps that’s because it has cost them so dearly.
Tommy Douglas is dead and quite frankly, so is the original intent behind universal healthcare. I lived in Winnipeg my whole life, I’ve heard the name Tommy Douglas more than I ever care to, I lived 2 streets over from where he grew up as a boy. The fact of the matter is, the whole reason behind his push for healthcare was because not everyone had access to the healtchcare they needed, espeically those who didn’t have a lot of money. He felt that nobody, regardless of their social status should have to suffer and not recieve fair treatment like every other Canadian. Fair point.
The fact that the NDP flagellate anyone who even dare whisper about making changes to our current healthcare system by making it 2-tier or privatized is a hypocrisy in and of itself! The very healthcare system that Tommy Douglas brought about to ensure everyone had access to healtchcare has now become the ugly behemoth he was against in the first place. Because of this monstrosity of a system we call healthcare that has wait times for important surgeries and diagnotic tests, the health care system is now causing the very suffering and lack of access that Tommy strove to eliminate!!
The NDP should get off their soap box and stop slapping everyone around with their Tommy idols and actually embrace what his main purpose was in the first place! He didn’t want people to suffer needlessly… now it’s not so much because of income desparity, but becaue of the size and complexity of the system itself! The NDP should embrace measures that would improve the system so that everyone can have the quality of care they deserve, the very care Tommy wanted for all Canadians in the first place.
I was being ironic Peter.