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Wednesday, September 15, 2004
(Not) The Health Summit
There is saturation media coverage of the Prime Minister and Premiers getting together for a Health Summit as if something of substance were happening there. I suppose this is understandable since Canadian’s number one priority is our dysfunctional health care system and the dramatic promises to “fix it for a generation” in the last election.
But the meeting isn’t about health care, nor will anything of substance happen there. It is just politicians trying to toss a hot potato back and forth, using health care as a political football to try to persuade one level of government to do the taxing and a different one to take credit for the spending. It will have zero net effect on us regular citizens.
In the end they will issue a statement with some impenetrable numbers in it representing how much the federal government is prepared to tax you on behalf of your province. From your point of view it won’t matter much what the number is, as personally I’m not really hung up on whether to support $1 of health spending in my province I direct 15 cents of it through the federal government or just 12. Tax is tax to me, and I fail to see the cosmic significance of the ratio collected federally rather than provincially.
It is wrong to say it doesn’t matter at all, as the more the tax burden gets shifted up to the federal level the more Ontario and Alberta taxpayers support the other provinces. But that’s really a discussion on the amount of equalization payments, not health care. It’s hard to imagine this much attention being devoted to a conference on equalization payments though.
So in the end they will issue a number. The premiers may not agree, or only agree under the greatest duress that the number is big enough. It doesn’t matter whether they agree or not, the feds will still issue a number. It will be multiplied out over enough years to make it look like a big number, but for us taxpayers it won’t matter one iota what the number is. If it’s a big number over time you will see a hypothetical $1 of income tax split something like 70-30 on your income tax form, rather than 68-32 (obviously actual numbers depend on your income level and province). Do you care? Me neither. Maybe Dalton McGuinty can persuade Martin to levy the Ontario Health Premium for him so he can claim he didn’t raise taxes, it was the feds.
Aside from the impenetrable numbers they will issue meaningless platitudes. See the previous health accord for a sample:
Further initiativesShortly after they issued these platitudes about patient safety we experienced outbreaks of SARS, Clostridium Difficile and various other infections, the one thing in common they had is that they were being spread within the hospitals themselves. You were reasonably safe as long as you didn’t have the misfortune of being inside one of these Accord-improved hospitals. So they may issues a platitudinous accompaniment but it doesn’t matter what the words in it are. The provinces will attempt to run the hospitals to the best of their ability within their bureaucratic restraints regardless of the obligatory verbiage released at a summit. They might even agree to have the governments periodically mail documents back and forth and call that accountability. Whatever that type of inter-jurisdictional bureaucratic exercise can be called, accountability it is not. Real accountability would allow the patient to get his treatment elsewhere if his province can’t or won’t deliver. Rest assured we won’t see that coming out of this summit.
The Accord also supports initiatives to advance patient safety, health human resources, technology assessment, innovation and research, and healthy living.
Accountability
Annual reporting to Canadians will be facilitated by the creation of a Health Council made up of Canadians, representatives of both orders of government and experts. Their work will enable Canadians to assess health system performance and the pace of implementation of the Accord. To improve reporting, the Accord contains clear objectives and a commitment to achieving comparable indicators on health system performance.
Posted by Kevin Jaeger on September 15, 2004 in Canadian Politics | Permalink
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Comments
Kevin's disillusionment is spot-on.
He is wrong to be indifferent about the funding, though. In the short term, an increase in federal funding means the provinces won’t need to raise taxes. If the feds don’t kick in, you can bet that they won’t return us the money in a tax cut. But the provinces WILL raise our taxes.
In the long term, increasing the federal funding of provincial jurisdiction makes a further mockery of our constitution.
OK, maybe he is right to be indifferent and disillusioned.
Posted by: Pete E | 2004-09-15 5:41:53 PM
Kevin's disillusionment is spot-on.
He is wrong to be indifferent about the funding, though. In the short term, an increase in federal funding means the provinces won’t need to raise taxes. If the feds don’t kick in, you can bet that they won’t return us the money in a tax cut. But the provinces WILL raise our taxes.
In the long term, increasing the federal funding of provincial jurisdiction makes a further mockery of our constitution.
OK, maybe he is right to be indifferent and disillusioned.
Posted by: Pete E | 2004-09-15 5:41:54 PM
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