Remember Stephen Harper's pledge to let people travel to other province's to get health care?
He called it the Patient Wait Times Guarantee.
It already exists.
It's already part of the publicly funded health care system in Canada.
Has been for decades.
That's because the Canada Health Act provides for accessibility to the system at public expense, irrespective of where one is located. If a service isn't available in your area or if you have to go elsewhere to get treatment based on medical advice, then the provincial health care plan has to cover the costs of the medical services.
Harper can implement his plan right away because it already exists.
What Harper isn't talking about is defraying the cost of travel and accommodations.
That system already exists, too, at least in some provinces. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador announced changes to its program today, which covers the costs of sending people outside the province for medical care. It covers not only procedures that just aren't available. It also covers patients who can't get timely access to care, as determined by their medical practitioners.
The government release is actually a little misleading when it talks about the program starting in 1998. Medical transportation assistance in Newfoundland and Labrador actually dates from the start of the medicare system. It is provided based on the accessibility provisions of the Canada Health Act.
The old program was canceled in 1997 by the Tobin government only to be replaced the next year with a similar program - only major difference is that it went from being fully government funded to being one where the patient and government split the costs.
Medical travel is based on doctor's advice for each patient.
The policy decision is made by the provincial government - the province decides how to spend the cash.
The upshot of it all?
Harper's wait times guarantee is already in place. And for anyone who isn't getting financial assistance to help width travel costs?
Steve doesn't speak about that at all.