The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
February 12, 2002
By Virginia Galt
“Labour costs could shoot up, jeopardizing one of Canada’s key competitive advantages, if universal health care is eroded and unions go after employers for private coverage, industrial relations specialists say.”
The Conference Board of Canada, in a recent briefing paper on corporate health care costs in Canada and the United States:
“Any policy debate on the future of the health care system of Canada should recognize not only medicare’s symbolic value to individual Canadians, but also its economic contribution to the competitiveness of Canadian businesses vis-Ć -vis the United States.”
Beth Capell, Ph.D., responding to the Urban Institute report on the safety net:
The only “safety-net system” proposals that would give the uninsured the same access to care as the insured require that the safety net is as well funded as insurance coverage and as readily accessible. None of these so-called safety net proposals mentioned by Holahan and Spillman, much less the Bush proposal, approach that level of funding and accessibility, to the best of my knowledge. In California, we would need to spend an additional $8-$10 billion a year to fund care for the uninsured comparable to the cost of coverage. Short of that, the safety net will always be inadequate. Even with that, given the well-established correlation of poverty and ill health, funding for the uninsured may not be sufficient–but it would be much closer.