An unhealthy economy (2012)

On December 19th. federal Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, dropped a bombshell by informing Canada’s provincial governments that the annual six per cent increases in health transfers will not be guaranteed by Ottawa after 2016. Instead of six per cent, the increase will be tied to the rate of economic growth and inflation that Flaherty predicts will be in the four per cent range. What genius! In this guy we have another economic expert who knows exactly where the economy will be years from now!

Reaction from provincial ministers was immediate and furious. Ontario Finance Minister, Dwight Duncan, said, “The anger among my colleagues was absolutely palpable. There is no agreement. It’s a unilateral federal offer. Our Christmas present this year is a lump of coal. This gives us certainty all right - certainty that health care is being undermined. This is an attack on public health care.” Manitoba’s Finance Minister, Stan Strothers, was incensed by the high-handed actions of the federal government, “I’m open to any discussion on any angle in terms of the whole ball of wax of transfers - equalization, health, social transfers. I’m open to speaking with the minister on any of that. We didn’t have that today. This was very unilateral.”

Ontario Premier, Dalton Mcguinty, was expecting to negotiate with Prime Minister Harper, “The federal Conservative Party did, during the election, make a commitment to six per cent and I expect them to honour that, but it’s going to take more than just new dollars. It’s going to take accountability, it’s going to take reforms, it’s going to take targets, and we’ll have to hold our-selves to account for bringing about improvement.”

During the last election the Conservatives ‘suggested’ that, if elected, they would continue with the annual six per cent in creases. Some would say it’s just another example of a party making vote-winning promises they had no intention of keeping. Others might argue that a broken promise doesn’t necessarily mean insincerity, but that, once elected, the hard, cold realities of administering capitalism force politicians to compromise with their good intentions. Either way, it means the same thing - the working class, who voted the government into power, will suffer.

Ottawa claims that with transfers at nearly $27 billion per year, it cannot continue with the increases. Since the Conservative Party stands for the continuation of capitalism, once elected, it becomes the executive committee of the capitalist class, grappling with capitalism’s multiplicity of problems while trying to manage the system in the interests of the owners of capital. At present, Ottawa has a $31 billion budget deficit which Harper, Flaherty and company have to reduce. As Flaherty said, “We all realize that public finances relate to revenues and we can’t pretend to spend money we don’t have.” Here we have a ridiculous situation where those who try to run capitalism at a provincial level are getting shafted by those who try to run it at the federal level. This would all be hilarious were the effects of their actions not so serious on the ordinary worker. Those who need health care will not always be able to access it. The absurdity of it all is emphasized by McGuinty’s coments about the need for reforms.

The most significant question of all is ‘can this problem be dealt with in capitalism?’ Can you have access to the health system when needed while leaving the fundamentals of the capitalist system in tact? Socialists do not oppose reforms, some of which, like medicare, are of benefit to the working class. What we do not do is advocate them because we have something better to advocate. What we do is point out the nature of the capitalist system and how their benefits are mostly temporary. Medicare is beneficial to the capitalist class also. In Britain, in 1939, when many thousands of young men were drafted for the war, it was found that an alarming percentage were not fit ‘to fight for king and country’ after a decade of depression era unemployment and poor nutrition. Hence the British Health Act of 1948. Many called it ‘The Back To Work Act’, implying, correctly, it was to repair an injured worker so he could return all the sooner to be exploited. As early as 1951, this great reform was in trouble with the addition of some prescription charges (initially free) being added. Now everyone agrees the system is in a mess with the government contracting out services and allowing a parallel private system. So much for the permanence of reforms!

Here in Canada, we are all aware how the quality of health care has declined and will do so even further with the reduction on transfers to the provinces. Emergency waiting times have increased with too few physicians on hand; patients wait longer for operations and are often sent home too soon because beds are needed; some of our best medical specialists go into the private sector or to another country for higher pay; many nurses are employed part-time on contract where they are paid less and have few benefits. It is about to get worse. It’s a case of starving the system of adequate funds to help usher in a private system and a decades-long policy of reducing taxes (and thereby increasing the portion of the surplus-value that goes to profits) leaving all governments to do nothing but cut programs, including health.

There is only one answer, the democratic ownership and management of the whole system of producing and distributing wealth. This would necessarily mean the abolition of money and the production of goods and services to meet the real needs of the whole community. In such a system, all will contribute according to their abilities and take from the common pool whatever they need. There will be no barrier for anyone seeking medical care or anything else of the necessities of life. That will no longer depend on the size of one’s bank account. That is socialism and it is ready to be implemented now. Are you ready to work for it?