23 December 2016

Canada-NL Health Deal: Warning Signs #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Late Friday evening, the provincial government announced it had signed a deal with the federal government on health funding.

We don't know what the arrangement is on the annual increase in funds but if it looks like what New Brunswick bought into,  Newfoundland and Labrador won;t see anything significant.  Once we've got more details, we'll get back to you on that.

As for the money tagged for home care and mental health,  there will be another $160.7 million over 10 years.  That works out to $16.7 annually. Since we get $738 million annual now from both the Canada Health Transfer and the Canada Social Transfer,  that works out to an annual increase of  zero point two percent (0.2%).  New Brunswick's deal got them zero point three percent (0.3%).

These health transfers will be delivered based on the population.  Since the government's own optimistic forecast has the population shrinking over the next decade, we may well wind up with less money from Ottawa at a time when our demand for health care funding will increase.

-srbp-