Jul 11, 2018


Supporters of the new Ford government in Ontario and the abandoned majority who voted against the Conservatives would do well to be wary of the recent move by Health Minister, Christine Elliott, to cut free prescriptions for the wealthy.

While this move may gratify those who naively celebrate it as an egalitarian and populist gesture designed to "soak the rich" (including those who have private health insurance), ostensibly in order for tax dollars to be redirected towards the poor, the subtext of all this is that Elliott's move is a cynical first step in a projected assault on universal health care.

The wealthy already enjoy substantial tax write-offs for their private medical and dental plans, courtesy of constant lobbying and political donations directed at federal and provincial political parties by big insurance, so the benefit to taxpayers by Elliott will certainly not help the poor. Rather, Elliott's reforms should be viewed for what they are: As infant steps towards the establishment of a two-tier provincial healthcare system…

It is hardly coincidental that this move comes as a federal committee under the leadership of former Ontario Health Minister, Dr. Eric Hoskins, who is examining the establishment of a free drug plan for the whole country under the Canada Health Act in order to address the current anomaly of Canada being the only country in the developed world with universal Medicare that does not have a parallel universal drug plan.

In this context, Elliott's executive action, which has not been debated in the legislature, having been sneaked in at the height of the summer recess and even before the legislature sat, is not only of questionable legality, but is clearly aimed at derailing attempts to extend universality to a variety of proposed programs including urgently needed public dental care, child care, and support for the growing number of elderly patients in dire need. Meanwhile, Doug Ford, reading from a page ripped from the users' manual of the 19th Century "rotten boroughs", will continue to offer the electorate something really frothy and substantial – namely cheap beer – so that the many thousands in this province who, on a daily basis, forgo life saving drugs because they cannot afford them and who live in agony because they can't afford private dental care, will at least be able to assuage their pain, courtesy of Ford, through publicly subsidized booze.

Adrian O'Connell

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