I want to get to that aspect. If it had been easy for the provinces to reduce health spending by establishing a ceiling, they would already have done that. However, there are costs associated with that in terms of services offered. I find it hard to understand how a province like Quebec, for example, can significantly reduce its spending without services suffering in one way or another. We can say that it cut growth in its health spending by half. However, whether it be the number of guaranteed services or the budgets allocated to the hospitals or other institutions, costs will be associated with that, in the form of financial costs or lesser coverage offered by the provincial system.
On May 17th, 2012. See this statement in context.