Canada Urged to Spend
Billions More on Health Care
Excerpt By David Ljunggren, Reuter's Health

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian Senate said on Friday that Ottawa should pump C$5 billion ($3.2 billion) more a year into the creaking healthcare system, putting more pressure on Finance Minister John Manley as he prepares to deliver a budget in February.

The report, drawn up by the Senate's health committee, is the first of two major probes due to be released this year into how to strengthen and reform the public health care system.

The Senate, Canada's unelected upper house of Parliament, said the cherished system could not continue operating in its current form and needed much more investment. The system now costs around C$100 billion a year to run.

"The committee estimates that Canadians need to contribute an additional C$5 billion a year to healthcare in order to make the publicly funded system fiscally sustainable well into the future," committee chairman Michael Kirby told a briefing.

Canada's health system guarantees free coverage for all, with priority going to those most in need. The ruling Liberal Party is fond of reminding voters that in the United States, which has a largely private health system, some 40 million people do not have health insurance.

But, over the years, line-ups for treatment in Canada have lengthened significantly as the cost of medicines and equipment rises, prompting some to urge Ottawa to allow for-profit hospitals and clinics to help ease the strain.

Kirby's committee said that unless steps were taken, it was inevitable that the courts would decide that Canadians should have the right to turn to private medicine.

"The Canadian people have to decide in fact they want the emergence of a parallel private system or are they prepared to put money in it to save the system they say they love," he said.

Any talk of a US-style two-tier system is anathema to the Liberals, leaving the government little choice but to try to improve the existing system.

This means tough choices for Manley, who has to juggle a diminishing budget surplus with the need to fund a raft of new social programs the government has promised to launch.

The Senate committee said the C$5 billion a year could be raised either through a new 1.5% federal sales tax or by making Canadians pay a special healthcare insurance premium of between 50 cents and C$4 a day, depending on income.

Manley, who deflected questions in Parliament on Friday on the Senate proposal, has already made it clear he will not allow the budget to go into deficit and has ruled out an increase in the hated 7% national sales tax to pay for healthcare.

While he might be able to brush off the Senate's demands for more healthcare money, he will need to pay more attention next month when a government-appointed royal commission into the health system delivers its final report.

Commission chairman Roy Romanow has already made it clear that he, too, will be recommending Ottawa put more money into health.

Reference Source 89

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