When Universal Health Care is undermined, none of us is safe!

Who can argue with the wealthy
paying their fair share? Certainly
not me. That is why we have a
progressive income tax system in
Canada. But not in Alberta. Here
we have a flat tax system, a
system that disproportionately
benefits the truly wealthy at the
expense of the middle class, and
a system that costs the Alberta
government billions in lost tax
revenues.
Now, however, health minister
Ron Liepert wants to do away with
universality of drug coverage for
Alberta’s seniors whose incomes
fall above $21,325 a year and
introduce a kind of progressive
tax system – a sliding scale
ranging from a $149 deductible
for someone just over $21,325 a
year and rising to a maximum
deductible of $7,500 on an
income of $150,000. At this point,
Liepert reverts to a flat tax so that
if a senior has $150,000 in
income or 2 million or 10 million,
he has the same deductible.
The deductible tax, remember, is
paid out of after-tax dollars.
And the deductible is less about
taxing wealthy seniors than it is
about taxing the sick, particularly
those with extensive medical
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needs requiring high on-going
drug costs.
The ostensible reason for this
move is so that drugs can be fully
covered for low-income seniors
(those below $21,325), a
desirable end, but paid for with 30
million dollars saved from the
current coverage of essentially
middle- income seniors. (At
present, all seniors pay a 30%
deductible, to a maximum of $25
per prescription.) Surely income
disparities should be addressed
through taxation, not through the
health care system.
In addition, Liepert has frozen the
number of long-term care beds in
a province where at present there
are over1,100 Albertans on an
urgent waiting list.. Instead, he
plans to abandon the regulated
fee system for long-term care to
encourage for-profit operators to
build the needed capacity. That
is, desperately ill, cognitively
impaired, or frail seniors -- or
their families -- will have to pay
whatever the market will bear.
The only alternative is an already
deregulated assisted living facility,
where limited nursing care is
available; where every
service, from toileting to feeding,
carries a fee; and where,
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apparently, the Canada Health Act
does not apply. Liepert claims
these changes offer “choice” --
code for the end of universality.
Liepert claims that seniors should
not have a sense of “entitlement”
simply because they have turned
65. Would he also say that school
children (and their “wealthy”
parents) should not have a sense
of entitlement to public education
simply because they turned six?
Should “wealthy” citizens not
have a sense of entitlement to
police service simply because they
are robbed? Should they not
have a sense of entitlement to fire
service simply because their
house burns down? Most of us
will never be robbed and never
lose our houses to fire. But all of
us pay taxes as a kind of
insurance against these
eventualities. When such costs
are shared by everyone, they are
affordable.
Surely, the same is true of health
care. When we are healthy, we
pay taxes all our lives to help care
for other people so that when we
are ill or frail, those other people
will care for us. Pharmaceutical
coverage is perhaps the most
significant component of health
care for a majority of seniors –