In a very positive move the government of Québec has announced it will cancel its proposed health care user fees that it controversially introduced in the last budget. The new fees which clearly would have been a barrier to some people needing to use the health care system would have yielded some 500 million dollars. Québec should also consider getting rid of the premiums it announced.The two measures would have yielded some 950 million dollars.
Currently a one percent point rise in the sales tax yields 1.5 billion so once the unemployment rate drops further, say to 6.5 % or below and the recovery is well underway Québec should consider a dedicated tax to help finance health care by perhaps increasing the general sales tax one half a percentage point or a combination of a smaller than that increase in the tax coupled with greater efficiency in the operation of the system. For example, MNA Dr.Amr. Khadir of Québec Solidaire has suggested substantial economies could be accomplished by Québec altering the way it purchases drugs under its pharmacare formulary. By implementing a plan drawn upon the Ontario approach Khadir argues that Québec could save as much as 2 $billion a year.
Savings like this and a better stream of tax revenues would preserve its universality in terms of access yet provide greater revenues and smaller costs . Québec currently is running a very small deficit that is 1.15 % of the Québec GDP which is quite sustainable as the gross debt to GDP is 53.2 %.
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