The Conservatives' stealth strategy to undermine medicare

[Oscar]

The Conservatives' stealth strategy to undermine medicare

[ http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/policyf ... e-medicare ]

By Robert Chernomas Ian Hudson | September 16, 2015

The Harper government has a two-fold strategy to undermine medicare. One part of the game plan is to underfund medicare, creating "shortages" over the medium-run without making a politically unwise frontal attack against the not-for-profit publicly funded and organized health-care system cherished by Canadian citizens. When it expired in 2014, the Conservative government refused to renegotiate the 2004 Health Accord. According to research by the Council of the Federation, a body comprising Canada's 13 premiers, the provinces and territories will receive $36 billion less over the next 10 years. In effect, the federal government is balancing its budget on the backs of the provinces. In response, provinces are left with difficult choices: de-list needed services and invite more private health-care providers as wait times increase or raise taxes and redistribute tax dollars from education and other public services.

The other passive-aggressive strategy is to allow some provinces to privatize health care by refusing to use its federal fiscal power. In 1984, for example, Liberal Health Minister Monique Begin used the Canada Health Act (CHA) to threaten withdrawal of federal funds because there was enough federal dollars in support of medicare to matter to the provinces. At that time, she forced Alberta to withdraw from plans to privatize their system.

It is important to remember the public sector portion of the Canadian health sector (hospitals, physicians and administration) has effectively controlled costs over the past 40 years. It is the private sector (e.g. drugs) that has driven medicare's increased costs. Research by Marc-Andre Gagnon and Guillaume Hebert (2010, The Economic Case for Universal Pharmacare) shows that bringing drugs under the control of the public system could not only reduce expenditures from $25 billion to $15 billion but also provide universal access and improved efficacy.

The Harper government strategy is to ignore violations of the CHA while underfunding medicare. Where then will the Canadian public be able to receive needed medical care? They will either go without needed care or turn to the more costly, less effective for-profit private sector. The Harper government strategy will increase health expenditures and reduce access. A more complete public health care sector would have billions more to spend on real problems like waiting lists without increasing costs to the taxpayer.

So what are the motives behind this strategy?

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