Another Modest Proposal

Letter to the Editor:

There has been much discussion and criticism of the BC HST (a.k.a. ‘hated sales tax’). Most of the criticism is directed toward the Provincial government having misled the citizens as to the fact the it made a 180 degree turn in deciding to bring it in, especially so soon after having won the previous election and previously expressing that it wasn’t considering the HST. A second area of criticism is that there are about 25 % more items now taxed that weren’t taxed by the former PST. Other areas of concern include the unevenness of the application of the HST: lower income earners will receive an HST rebate that higher income earners will not receive; depending on spending habits some will be affected more than others; through the input tax credit aspect businesses, as a group, will save about $ 2 billion in costs; certain businesses will now have to charge a higher tax on revenue (previously it may have been zero or just 5 %, as in the case of restaurants) and this may negatively impact those businesses.

The option to rescind the tax and to go back to what we had (i.e. the PST) unfortunately, is not as simple as it sounds: The Federal Government is supporting the new HST to the tune of $ 1.6 billion; businesses have incurred a variety of expenses in switching over and it would be unfair to have them switch back; refunding HST already paid would be very difficult and expensive to do; the government is currently saving costs in not administering a PST division.

However, I have a modest proposal. The first step would be to totally eliminate the HST and not go back to the former PST tax system. This, I am sure would make many happy. However, we need to replace the taxes somehow. Well, the good news is that there are segments of society that currently do not pay taxes and we can learn on how to make them pay from what is done in other parts of the world.

Illegal drugs in BC are big business. The State of Tennessee taxes the possession of illegal drugs. According to CNN, “you have 48 hours to report to the Department of Revenue and pay your tax” on any illegal substance you purchase in Tennessee, after which you will get “stamps to affix to your illegal substance” which “serve as evidence you paid the tax on the illegal product.” Tennessee does not require any identification whatsoever to get the stamps, and “it’s illegal for revenue employees to rat you out.”

Taxes on cow flatulence have been proposed in several European countries in recent years, including Ireland and Denmark. The outcries for these taxes came on the heels of a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization study claiming that 18% of the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming can be traced back to the unsavory “byproducts” of livestock. The Danish Tax Commission took it even further, estimating that “a cow will emit four tons of methane a year in burps and flatulence” while an average car emits just 2.7 tons of carbon dioxide during the same period.

Alternatively, perhaps a more practical way to satisfy the general taxpayer in BC is to lower the HST from 12 % to 10 %. The lower rate would offset those many extra items that we are now paying the extra 7 % on. Those businesses that have to charge higher sales taxes will see less of a negative impact. The BC government is touting the HST will create more jobs in the business community so a lower HST (i.e. lower tax revenue) will be made up by a more healthy economy generating more taxes in general.

____________________________________________________

Published as: Why not lower the HST or abolish it altogether? Ed Zirkwitz, The Nanaimo Daily News Published: Saturday, September 04, 2010

in the Victoria Times Colonist, August 30, 2010

WHO says? WHO says Canada is way down the List...

Letter to the Editor:

The headline for August 24, 2010 in a local newspaper read “Morale plunges at hospital say nurses.” Reading the details of the article left me unclear as to what “low morale” really means. How many nurses are demoralized and to what degree? Does that mean nurses are unable to provide good care because they are demoralized? Is this affecting other employees at the hospital? Are the patients suffering because of this?

We as patients and consumers pay through our taxes (about 40 % of the total provincial budget in BC) for what is becoming a very expensive and less than adequate system. In 2000 The World Health Organization ranked Canada as 30th among 191 member countries.

Last year Dr. Brian Crowley, the Founder and President of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax, Nova Scotia, described the Canadian healthcare system this way:

“Canadian Medicare operates in an unregulated, tax-financed, pay-as-you-go model. Our provincial governments are our monopoly provider. They not only pay for necessary care, but they also govern, administer, and evaluate the services that they themselves provide. They define what we call “medically necessary services” and pay for 99% of all physician services. They also forbid the use of private insurance for medically necessary services. They set the budgets for nominally private healthcare institutions. They appoint the majority of their board members and have explicit power to override management decisions. Under these circumstances, no hospital or hospital administrator can be expected to take any responsibility or initiative because decisions will always be second-guessed by those in political power.”

Several years ago the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the healthcare system violates Quebec’s charter of rights because it collects taxes, promises healthcare in return, forbids competing suppliers and then often doesn’t deliver the care. The justices summarized the situation this way: “A place in a queue is not healthcare.”

WHO ranked France as number one. For starters, the French system is not what most Americans imagine, says historian Paul Dutton at Northern Arizona University, author of Differential Diagnoses: A Comparative History of Health Care Problems and Solutions in the United States and France. "Americans assume that if it's in Europe, which France is, that it's socialized medicine," he says. "The French don't consider their system socialized. In fact, they detest socialized medicine. For the French, that's the British, that's the Canadians. It's not the French system."

Don’t get me wrong. I am strongly in favour of the idea of a publically funded health care system. The problem we have in Canada is in the delivery and the accountability. We by and large have a monopoly that doesn’t and hasn’t responded to the needs of those it professes to serve for a long time.

I wouldn’t go as far as wanting the French or American versions. The fact remains that much of the health care delivery and services are done privately (naturopaths, acupuncturists, dentists, message therapists and many other practitioners). Health food stores are flourishing. Drug stores are selling many health products as well. This is an illustration that our publically funded system often treats the symptom (e.g. prescribing drugs) and and not often enough the cause. More focus on treating the cause would make us a healthier nation.

The infighting at our local hospital is the symptom. Maybe both sides can get at treating the cause.

________________________________________________

Published by the Comox Valley Record as Health monopoly ineffective August 31-2010