Evidence of meeting #73 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was drugs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
Wouldn't that just increase the indebtedness of Canadians overall? Is that a fair assumption?
4:55 p.m.
Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament
Well, it's a transfer of those costs from the private sector to government. The portion that we don't know—and this was the question that was raised a little earlier—is how much of that private insurance that is provided is actually paid for by the governments or public entities. That we don't know yet. We haven't really looked at that breakdown.
That will tell you on a net basis how much overall the taxpayers have to bear as a result of this, but it's certainly a transfer of those.... It's like health care. If we didn't have a national health care system, employers would have provided national health care through insurance. Now that we have national health care, they don't have to provide that, obviously.
It's a reduction of the burden and the cost for businesses that are providing that kind of insurance. There will be some additional cost for taxpayers, because we are assuming the public sector would accept all the responsibility, certainly. How governments are going to finance that is a different issue, because then you have to get into the issue of whether the government can find that money somewhere within the envelope it has, or if it has to borrow more money to pay for that. That's another issue.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Thanks very much.
On behalf of the committee, I really want to thank you for the good work you did on this and to tell you how helpful it is. This is certainly going to have a big impact on our report to Parliament. We appreciate it very much.
I also want to say that today I think we've had the clearest answers we've ever had in this committee—ever. There is no room for misunderstanding. The answers were very clear, specific, and precise. On behalf of the committee, thanks very much.
We will now adjourn.