Health care numbers game: All that, for one per cent

“I spent hours flying across the country and back — in economy! — and wore a parka around Ottawa for two days to come back with just this?”

… Is what Premier David Eby is trying not to say out loud, following the big confab between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the premiers.

The meeting about a new federal-provincial health care funding arrangement dealt with such astronomically large sums that this analogy comes to mind.

The premiers went in asking for the sun, the moon and the stars.

They came out with the equivalent a lowergrade asteroid they’ll have to share.

Ottawa’s contribution to provincial health systems would be $46 billion higher than the previous arrangement, which sounds respectable. But divided by 10 provinces and the territories, and then divided again by 10 years, it amounts in B.C. to a few hundred million dollars a year.

“Fiscally limited,” was Eby’s muted response. It’s about two per cent of the B.C.’s health budget this year. Since that budget jumps every year, the federal increase’s impact will steadly diminish over the 10-year span.

Health Minister Adrian Dix was similarly cagey as provincial leaders were still huddling trying to figure out an official response to the federal position.

He said it amounts to the federal government increasing its current 23 per cent contribution to provincial health budgets to — wait for it… 24 per cent.

“That is better than 22 per cent,” Dix said, speaking slowly, so reporters could follow along. “Better than 21 per cent, better than 17 per cent. So in that sense, it’s positive.”

But 24 per cent was not what B.C. was looking for. Dix rattled off a long list of recent measures his ministry has undertaken just to keep up with increased demand. Every one of them cost significant amounts of money, now and into the future.

“I would expect the federal government would want to be part of that, to contribute in a substantial way.”

Dix said gave the federal Liberals credit for recognizing that cannot continue to deteriorate.

But “they’ve got to do better.”

“We are massively responding … providing more services. But the demand is going to continue to grow. And we need the federal government to … respond to it, better than they did this week.”

Meanwhile, Opposition Liberals and Greens continued to blast Dix in the legislature for how the system is managed.

Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon said the NDP government is the only group that thinks anything is getting better in the health-care system.

The list of health crises will be chanted daily for the duration of the legislative session. Twenty per cent of British Columbians don’t have a family doctor. Cancer-care wait times have degraded. Hundreds of thousands are waiting to get medical imaging. Wait times at walk-in clinics have doubled in three years.

Falcon said an urgent primary care centre in Victoria was at capacity 45 minutes after it opened.

Regarding the federal health funding proposal, he put more emphasis on management of the current budget, than on increasing it. “Some additional federal dollars might be helpful. … It’s not just about more money. It’s about how the system is currently being mismanaged.”

But the parties have been talking past each other for years in the house on health care. Any innovative solution when it comes to funding or management is unlikely to come from the legislature.

Just So You Know: Resentment and mistrust always surface when politicians’ travel claims come up. The premier may have booked economy on his Ottawa visit to avoid that. But B.C. needs to make a specific allowance for Eby. Expecting a 6’7” man to fly cross country with the kind of legroom you get in a Grade 1 desk is cruel and unusual punishment, verging on torture.

He’s entitled to upgrade from here on in. It’s in B.C.’s best interests, because God knows what he’ll agree to in Ottawa if he keeps putting himself through that hell to get there.