B.C. is about to lose billions of dollars in health-care funding. That’s because on Monday, the 10-year-old national Health Accord expires.
For the past decade, the Health Accord set the level of health-care funding that Ottawa provides the provinces and territories annually.
The accord also promoted national standards for public administration, universal access, comprehensive coverage, accessibility without extra charges or discrimination and portability across provinces.
Plus, it committed the federal and provincial governments to a set of common goals around wait times, home care, prescription drugs and team-based primary care.
However, in late 2011, a newly minted majority Conservative government in Ottawa unilaterally announced it was not renewing the accord.
Without it, there will now be no national goals or commitment to uphold Canada-wide standards, leading to 13 different health-care systems.
Funding-wise, federal health-care transfers to the provinces and territories will be cut by about 10 per cent or $36 billion over the next 10 years.
For B.C., this means beginning on April 1, more than a quarter billion dollars will be slashed from federal health-care transfers to our province in 2014-15.
It gets worse. Over the next 10 years, B.C. is projected to lose nearly $5 billion in funding from Ottawa for health care, making our province the confederation’s biggest loser when the current accord expires.
Per capita, British Columbians will take the biggest hit in federal health-care transfers over the next decade, when compared to the rest of Canada.
This year alone, B.C.’s cut in transfers totals more than the combined reductions to Newfoundland and Labrador, the three Maritime provinces, the three Prairie provinces and the three territories — $255 million for B.C. versus $225 million for the group of 10.
These extreme cuts will only continue to undermine B.C.’s already struggling public health-care system.
In response to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s agenda of health-care cuts, we need a strong push back by provincial leaders, starting with B.C.’s premier.
After all, it was through the leadership of another western Canadian premier that medicare was created across Canada in the 1960s.
At that time, the federal and provincial governments agreed to a 50-50 cost-sharing arrangement. B.C. saw a massive investment over the next 30 years in new hospitals, long-term care facilities, community care and home support.
However, by the mid-1990s, massive cuts to public spending resulted in the federal government footing only 10 per cent of health-care costs in Canada.
By 2000, provincial leadership once again was needed to save medicare. Fed up with the cuts, the premiers forced then-Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien to establish the Health Accord to better support public health care.
The accord created fairer federal funding formulas and recommitted all provinces to the Canada Health Act, ensuring medicare remains public and universally accessible. When the accord expires on Monday, the federal share of health-care funding will have nearly doubled to 20 per cent.
But now that is all about to change. Public health care is facing its latest crisis — brought on by a different federal government that refuses to support Canada’s most cherished social program.
That’s why it’s time for a new generation of provincial leaders to make the case for a new and better health accord.
And given the challenges facing B.C., our premier should be leading the charge.
After all, when her government was re-elected nearly a year ago, Premier Christy Clark promised to balance the budget, while also committing to not making cuts to health care.
These are difficult promises to keep, if the federal government cuts $5 billion from B.C.’s health-care system over the next decade.
The clock is winding down on the old Health Accord. But there’s still plenty of time to renew our national commitment to the values of a public and accessible medicare system.
Let’s get started.
Bonnie Pearson is secretary and business manager of the Hospital Employees’ Union.
