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The 1999 federal budget has been sold by the spin doctors as the “health budget”. After hacking away at health care for five years, Finance Minister Paul Martin stood up in the Commons and repeated the Liberal’s commitment to a strong public health care system.

Many will remember last year’s budget. It was pitched as the “education budget” but at the end of the day students and post-secondary institutions were worse off than ever.

So are we any better off this round? You be the judge.

Use the following checklist to score Martin’s budget. Consider not only the dollars that have been committed but the legislation and policy changes that have been promised.

Canada’s health care system was established through a federal-provincial cost-sharing agreement with the federal government paying 50 per cent of costs. Since 1995, the Chrétien government has cut transfer payments by $30 billion and the federal government is now paying a little over 10 per cent of Medicare costs.

Does the federal budget commit an additional $4.6 billion a year over five years to reinvest in public health care?

  • Yes
  • No

Has the federal government made a firm commitment to fund at least 25 per cent of health care spending in order to protect Medicare?
  • Yes
  • No

Canadians are being discharged earlier and sicker from hospitals and have to pay out of pocket for drugs, tests, equipment and care. This shift from hospitals and institutions must be accompanied by new federal legislation and financing to ensure home and community care remains universal, comprehensive, accessible, publicly administered and portable. Without guarantees, additional funds will simply be used to hike corporate profits while quality continues to suffer.

Does the federal budget earmark $2 billion in federal funding for home care?
  • Yes
  • No
Has the federal government promised legislation prohibiting the use of public funds to purchase for-profit home care services?
  • Yes
  • No

The fastest growing component of health care spending is heavily in private hands — prescription drugs. The National Forum on Health recommended drugs be treated as hospital services and integrated as a fully funded public component of Medicare.

Does the federal budget include prescription drugs as a fully funded component of Medicare?
  • Yes
  • No

New information technologies could improve Medicare or increase corporate control over the health care system. The National Forum on Health recommended that health information systems be developed in the “public interest” in order to protect health information from private and commercial interests like drug companies, banks and employers.

Has the federal government promised legislation to assure that health information systems will protect the principles of transparency, public administration and privacy?
  • Yes
  • No

Increasingly health research funding is dependent on commercial ventures controlled by powerful pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. As the case of Dr. Nancy Olivieri at Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto makes clear, corporate pressure imperils the integrity of medical research and endangers our health.

Has the federal government made a commitment to adequately fund public health research agencies that operate at arms-length from industry?
  • Yes
  • No

Protecting the public from food and drug hazards is a key component of the Medicare system. The federal government has slashed funding to drug and food safety research. At the Health Protec-tion Branch, scientists involved in food, drugs, medical devices and blood have been instructed that industry is their client, not the public.

Does the federal budget include a significant increase in funding for the protection of public health including research, regulation and public education?
  • Yes
  • No

Crucial decisions about the future of our public health system are being made by politicians — all men, all white, all with good incomes and private health coverage — behind closed doors. CUPE supports the Canadian Health Coalition’s call for a national summit to debate how best to protect and strengthen our public health care system.

Has the federal government made a commitment to call a national summit on health care, to ensure that all Canadians have a say in Medicare’s future?
  • Yes
  • No
Health is broader than health care. The federal government has an obligation to provide leadership and funds to create employment, provide housing, protect the environment and assure a basic income to every Canadian. In the government’s fixation on the deficit, unemployment insurance has been gutted, program funding has been slashed and the poor have been largely abandoned.

Has the federal government strengthened the social safety net, made a firm commitment to create jobs, restore UI benefits and coverage, and house the homeless?
  • Yes
  • No