PHARMACARE AND FEAR
Selley on Liberal scare tactics
On Monday morning at the David Braley Health Sciences Centre in downtown Hamilton, Ont., Justin Trudeau begged Canadians to consider the state of their health care after the Oct. 21 election. “Who do you want at the negotiating table standing up to Doug Ford?” he asked. “Andrew Scheer, who follows Doug Ford’s lead? Or our Liberal team that will fight for you?”
I say “begged” not so much because of his tone, but because he asked the same basic question — “who do you want at the negotiating table?” — over and over again, in response to every health care-related question from reporters, in English and French, for about 20 minutes, until the press conference was over.
Clearly the question is to Team Trudeau’s liking, and the answer is obvious.
(Meanwhile, in Vaughan, Ont., Scheer was reminding people of the “scandal and corruption” when Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGuinty ran the province.)
The negotiations Trudeau was talking about would involve the Liberal leader’s promise, unveiled Monday, to make sure every Canadian has access to a family doctor, mental health services, homecare and palliative care, no matter where they live — something no premier is likely to disagree with, though some might chafe at the promised imposition of “national standards.”
And the negotiations would involve a national prescription drug program as envisioned by the report of Eric Hoskins’ Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare — that is to say “universal, single-payer, public pharmacare” with copayments maxing out at $5 per prescription, and $100 per year, with exemptions for those on social assistance and disability benefits.
This point might be trickier: Some provinces might much prefer to take Ottawa’s money and design their own pharmacare systems, or simply offer coverage to people who don’t already have it through work, or devote the cash to other health-care priorities. Most Canadians have prescription drug coverage as it stands — enough that the Conservatives saw fit on Monday to warn Canadians that Trudeau might be coming after their workplace benefits.
But assuming you want what Trudeau’s offering, and assuming you think Doug Ford is going to cross his arms and say “hell no,” then the Liberals want you to think the guy to stare him down is … well, first of all, the guy who spent five minutes Monday morning gratuitously slagging Ford off as “Exhibit A” of everything that’s wrong with conservative governments.
SOME PROVINCES MIGHT MUCH PREFER TO TAKE OTTAWA’S MONEY AND DESIGN THEIR OWN PHARMACARE SYSTEMS. — CHRIS SELLEY
WHO DO YOU WANT AT THE NEGOTIATING TABLE STANDING UP TO DOUG FORD? — JUSTIN TRUDEAU
“Conservative politicians love to say they are for the people, but we know what happens once they’re in office. Families here in Ontario have seen just how far they are willing to go to help the wealthiest few. How quickly they will make cuts to public health and to the services people rely on most,” Trudeau intoned. “Doug Ford threatened cuts to Ontario’s autism program. He cancelled an out-of-country OHIP program. And he cut Ontario’s pharmacare program that was focused on the needs of kids and young adults. Rewarding the wealthy and big polluters, and making life harder for the middle class. That’s what Conservative politicians do.”
He’s also the guy who couldn’t answer very simple reporters’ questions about what sort of pharmacare he was envisioning, or the timeline for it, beyond referencing Hoskins’ report. He’s also the guy bringing a measly $6 billion over four years to the table to cover the entire announcement — pharmacare, palliative care, family doctors, the whole lot. He called it a “down payment,” but it’s barely even that: Hoskins’ report estimates the cost of providing universal coverage for “essential medicines” — an intermediate step — at $3.5 billion in 2022; the cost of true universal coverage, at $15.3 billion in 2027. (You will note that first timeline is awfully tight.)
He’s also the guy whose party “endorse(d) pharmacare as a long-term national objective” in its 1997 platform, governed for 13 of the ensuing 22 years, re-pledged in 2004 to “design the right nationwide approach to provide all Canadians with a basic level of coverage, including catastrophic protection,” and insists this time it’s really for real. They have a down payment and everything!
No doubt this all sounds great to committed Liberal voters, and if the federal Conservatives’ health-care record in Ottawa had been one of savage cuts, it might appeal to many others as well. But that wasn’t the record: the harshest thing they did was cut annual health-care spending transfer increases from six per cent to a floor of three per cent — a formula the Liberals stuck to in office. Universal drug coverage is an entirely laudable goal; the lack of it makes a mockery of Canadians’ boasting about their health-care system. But national drug coverage is far from the only way to go about it.
In short, Trudeau is trying to spook Canadians with the prospect of Andrew Scheer failing to stand up for a pharmacare system that doesn’t exist, and against Doug Ford’s demands for — what, exactly? Less money for health care? Not bloody likely. It’s odd, really, because fearmongering is one of their greatest skills. Monday wasn’t their finest work.