Mr. Speaker, on this business of a two-tier system, do we want it or do we not want it, we have had it for years. Let me draw to the member's attention that we have a two-tier health care system right now.
If my friends would like to get out their wallets or their purses or whatever, I would refer them to their benefits card from the public service health care plan. Mine says: "D.C. Grey, hospital level three". As soon as we see other levels we ask whether this is a two-tier health care system or a one tier system. Members opposite shun that and talk about the fact that we could never have a two-tier health care system. My card says level three, so how many tiers are we looking at here?
Let me also draw to their attention that MPs pay exactly zero; zero comes off their paycheques every month.
Anyone in the gallery who works for the public service or anyone who works in our offices, anyone who is a public servant, has the option to have a level three health care card. My
staff members have those. They pay if they are single $5.32 a month; if they are a family they pay $10.35 a month. I got that today from our pay and benefits clerk in the comptroller's office.
If we are to talk about two tier health and be so sanctimonious about it, that we in the Reform Party will only have an American system in two tier health, this is nonsense. We cannot beat around the bush because that is fact. We pay zero for this level of hospitalization. Public servants, people who work for us in our offices, pay $5.32 or $10.35 a month. That is two tier or spending differently. MPs are off the hook again; zero comes off our paycheques for that. We have some serious problems in the country and that is one tiny example.
We are in favour and believe every Canadian should have access to health care regardless of their ability to pay. That is a fact. That is important across the country. It comes down to how we will pay for that. The country is $550 billion in the hole and yet the health minister this morning said it is just going along fine and we have lots of money.
Deficit spending in the late sixties and early seventies has dug us into a hole so deep that if we do not get this thing under control even the size of the Chamber would not hold the cash we owe. It is rising at a rate of $1,500 per second.
For people on the government benches to say we are dreaming on this side of the House and everything is as safe as could be forever, that is not true.
My friends across the way know it. We cannot be eating up interest rate payments at the rate we are paying and expect everything and the status quo to go along as it has.
There are discrepancies in the system right now. The system needs to be fixed. There are many tiers, many levels of health care. Let us admit it rather than having a shade pulled over our eyes and trying to go out to Alberta and scare the daylights out of us and my health care minister. Do not try to frighten anybody. Do not accuse Reformers or the Bloc of fearmongering.
We are dealing with the facts. We have serious economic problems. We do have a two tier health system. My friend from Winnipeg this morning, a doctor, said he was all in favour of the Liberal plan of health care. He was specifically asked whether he had ever in his medical practice referred one of his patients to the Mayo Clinic. I suspect he did. I suspect there were many times in his medical profession because I think he was an excellent doctor who would tell someone they needed to get to the Mayo Clinic fast. Winnipeg is plenty close to the Mayo. I bet he referred lots of patients there.
I bet the doctor from Vancouver Centre who lives close to the American border, in someone's best interest if they could afford to pay, would send them down to the Mayo Clinic, California, Seattle or wherever for health care if they could afford it. This is happening all the time.
To say we are just fearmongering in the Reform Party, forget that. Let us get on with solving the problem.
They also talked about our position in the campaign. That was $150 billion ago. The national debt is now at $550 billion, $150 billion more than when a lot of greenhorns walked into this place not even a year and a half ago. The debt and the interest on it are chewing so quickly that if we do not get this problem under control it will destroy the national medicare program more than anything else.
Is there a mix of health care plans? I was really surprised as a westerner when I first came down here to discover that even though I in my teaching career had been paying for my Alberta health care forever people in Ontario do not even pay for their premiums. That sounded pretty strange to me. They do not in Manitoba either.