Ottawa Sun
Published: Saturday, October 2, 2004 Health care takes turn for the worse
The McGuinty government has chosen sound bites over solutions as it struggles to fix our ailing health care system Today is the anniversary of what local Tories call the “Eves of Destruction.” One year ago today Dalton McGuinty and his Liberals swept to power on their 231-promise Choose Change platform. The twin pillars of this platform were Dalton’s promises on taxes (no new ones) and health care reform (making the system better). Surely you remember those TV ads and speeches where Mr. McGuinty said: “I won’t cut your taxes, but I won’t raise them either.” Then along came the May 18th provincial budget, the delisting of chiropractic services, and optometry and physiotherapy and the new Ontario health premium (read: tax). Promise made, promise broken – in my house we call it a bald-faced lie. In fairness, I acknowledge the role our Premier played at the recent First Minister’s Conference (FMC) in shaping a new $41 billion injection of federal transfers for health care. However, it was clear from the outset that Paul Martin had no real plan for open negotiations and his so-called “transparent FMC” was simply a three-day photo-op with the real negotiations remaining secret and behind closed doors. As impressive as $41 billion may sound, this is hardly the so-called “fix for a generation” that Mr. Martin crowed about during the last election. This cash infusion buys less than four months of services nationwide given current health care spending patterns. And the fact remains that on the most important issue facing Ontarians, the sustainability and improvement of our health care system – and the so-called justification for the Premier’s lie – we have a provincial government, premier and health minister who are more concerned with headlines than heartbeats. They have chosen spin over substance, sound bites over solutions and ideology over innovation in their relentless quest to bring even more chaos into the $30 billion health care envelope. To start, the Liberals plan to spend $50 million of our money – equivalent to 14 state-of-the-art MRI machines – raised through the new health tax to purchase existing private MRI clinics that are already delivering OHIP funded services. This proposal will not reduce waiting lists by one person and does absolutely nothing to improve health outcomes for Ontario citizens. As an aside, what is with this irrational, incessant and idiotic vilification of the private sector when it comes to health care? Every European nation – where waiting lists are unheard of – employs a blend public and private care providers that operate well with each other. Meanwhile, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) continues to warn us that a $600-million shortfall exists and that new hospital accountability agreements will result in deep service cuts in every community. The province has mandated that hospitals and hospital boards must balance their budgets. On the surface, this diagnosis – pardon the pun – makes sense. But a second opinion is in order. Hospital costs are increasing at about 8% per year, yet the provincial government has provided less than half this amount in preliminary budget allocations for fiscal 2004/2005. To make matters worse, most new money that has been pumped into the health system in the last six years has gone to wages. Not wages for new employees, but increased wages for existing employees. The main beneficiaries of this largesse have been unionized hospital workers – who are winning big-time, retroactive arbitration awards – and hospital executives. But by far the biggest winners in the skyrocketing salary sweepstakes are Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) bureaucrats. A quick scan of the annual postings mandated under the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act shows a rapid increase over the past four years of MOHLTC bureaucrats joining the $100G club. Salaries account for 70% to 75% of most hospital budgets and outside forces are driving this cost component higher. Even though hospitals will have no idea what their final budget allocations will be until October, some eight months into the fiscal year, CEOs and hospital boards are being asked to guarantee a balanced budget, protect core services and implement a non-essential service cut plan. It is patently absurd. One senior hospital executive – who leans very Liberal in his politics – recently confided to me that as much as he didn’t like the Tories, at least they understood the funding and service pressures hospitals face. In his own words, McGuinty and Health Minister George Smitherman “haven’t got a clue how to govern in a health care environment. These guys are a disaster.” Instead of buying private MRI clinics, staring down American companies at the border, offering bean-counting teams to find efficiencies and cutting chiropractic and physiotherapy services for many low-income Ontarians, the McGuinty Liberals should move quickly to institute service-based, multi-year funding (as recommended by the Kirby Senate Committee) for Ontario hospitals. Health care under the Tories was in serious condition to be sure. But after a year in office, the diagnosis for health care under Dalton, George and their gang of galavanting ideologues has worsened to critical. Will the patient survive until the next election on October 4th, 2007? |