Public healthcare under renewed threat from Harper and the cons. $36 billion to be cut from healthcare while the federal budget continues to rise. "What many Canadians do not realize is that there are no first ministers’ gatherings of all the premiers and the prime minister anymore. Harper refuses to attend them. The 2004 health accord’s funding formula effectively reversed the cuts of the 1990s. It has helped to stabilize our health-care system, improve access and increase the federal share of health-care funding. But virtually all of the other initiatives set out by the first ministers in the accord have since been abandoned by the Harper Conservative government. ... Equally important, in 2004 the provinces, territories and federal government established a National Pharmaceutical Strategy. Finally, progress was promised toward a national drug coverage program that would actually cut overall drug costs through bulk buying and better co-ordination. But since their election, the Harper Conservative government has refused to participate in this committee, effectively killing the dream of national drug coverage and stalling progress on reducing drug prices for the better part of the last decade. ... In fact, the federal Conservative government’s antipathy to public medicare is becoming more and more overt. Not only has it walked away from the table on a national drug program and home care, it has also bluntly refused to meet with the provincial governments about renewing the funding formula for health care. Instead, the federal government plans to reduce funding from current projections by $36 billion in upcoming years, reversing the gains made in the health accord." - Natalie Mehra and Michael McBane, Toronto Star. ᐰ
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 01:24:45 +0000
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