{"id":11740,"date":"2016-03-02T06:10:07","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T14:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=11740"},"modified":"2016-02-29T12:12:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T20:12:13","slug":"open-space-government-misses-mark-with-msp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/03\/02\/open-space-government-misses-mark-with-msp\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Government misses mark with MSP"},"content":{"rendered":"

On February 16 finance minister Mike de Jong announced BC\u2019s 2016 budget and this government\u2019s plans for the Medical Services Plan (MSP) in the province. There was a great effort on the government\u2019s part to reduce the cost of MSP payments for low-income families, but they\u2019re missing the mark.<\/p>\n

Green Party of British Columbia leader Andrew Weaver brought a petition created by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) to the government as the budget was being created; the petition asked for a change in how MSP premium payments are collected. More than 60,000 people signed the petition calling for the premiums to be scrapped and integrated into the already existing income-tax process.<\/p>\n

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This story was originally in our March 2, 2016 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CTF BC director Jordan Bateman spoke about this on CBC a few days before the budget was released. He argued that collapsing MSP premiums into the income-tax system would actually save a substantial amount of money; he estimated it to the sum of $100 million per year, based on the bureaucracy costs.<\/p>\n

Bateman went on to say that at the very least, tying health-care payments into the income-tax system would eliminate charging someone who makes $35,000 a year the same as someone who is making $300,000 a year, which is still the case in this new budget.<\/p>\n

BC premier Christy Clark has called the MSP system antiquated and has said that the way people pay for it doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense. However, BC\u2019s Liberal government has shut down the CTF proposal; in the budget\u2019s release speech, de Jong said the government didn\u2019t want BC residents to think health care was free.<\/p>\n

The citizens of BC don\u2019t need our government teaching us a lesson we don\u2019t need on the cost of health care. We need fair taxation, and, currently, the MSP premiums are not fair.<\/p>\n

In the truly global, connected world we live in, I think Canadians are extremely grateful for our public health-care system, and if we ever forget, all we need do is take a look across the border to see just how fortunate we are to have a government that believes in public health care. The finance minister was not appointed to teach the citizens of BC a lesson in finances. There is absolutely no reason for not seriously looking into the effectiveness of amalgamating health-care payments into the income-tax system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 16 finance minister Mike de Jong announced BC\u2019s 2016 budget and this government\u2019s plans for the Medical Services Plan (MSP) in the province. There was a great effort on the government\u2019s part to reduce the cost of MSP payments for low-income families, but they\u2019re missing the mark. Green Party of British Columbia leader […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-march-2-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t