Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis Munroe
Catching up on the last few pages and I am shocked at just how far left some of the NDP supporters are.
All I see is go ahead and tax me more but pay for my university, my daycare, my healthcare, etc. This is one slipperly slope and would crush the provinces private sector.
I also see all sorts of flip flopping on why $25 day care makes sense. At first it was to get everyone back to work. I mentioned that there is no work for all of these people to go to unless they want to go back to school. Then it was that we don't have enough babies being born. Then it was so that you could take all those savings and pump them back into the economy. It is absolutely crazy to me to think that a household earning $100,000 is going to qualify for goverment assisted daycare on the backs of all tax payers.
Again... I stand by subsidized anything to someone who truly needs it. That single parent who is struggling to put food on the table. Subsidizing for a family who is choosing between the Bahamas or Cancun for a vacation just seems odd.
On a unrelated note and something I have mentioned a couple of times... what would be wrong with
1) A sugar tax similar to other European nations to support healthier eating and increase government revenue, not to mention decrease healthcare spending due to healthier diets.
2) A medical visit fee on a sliding scale based on household income ... as small as $5 for a low income earner to $20 for a $100k + household. Small enough to not hurt anyones wallet if they truly need assistance yet big enough to not just pop in for the hell of it. This would decrease medical wait times and increase revenue.
2 ideas that seem so obvious to me but clearly have more to it than what I am thinking.
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For number 2, you are creating a punitive system for people with chronic illnesses that may discourage them from seeking help when needed. I don't want to live in a society where, just because someone needs more help than the rest of us, they have to pay more. I'm sure you could come up with a convoluted system to work around these issues, but I'm not really sure it is worth it. I'm sure if someone looked at the numbers for unnecessary doctor's office visits, and the cost of it, it wouldn't even show up as a line item on the provincial budget it would be so small. Feel free to prove me wrong on that though, I haven't looked at numbers.
I can't imagine many people pop into a doctor's office just for the hell of it. If they do, you have the family doctor deal with it. Now, if you want to prevent ER visits I'd be all for something to reduce those, but that would have to include 24/7 clinics as alternatives, since doctor's aren't typically available. We do actually have these with the PCN, but it's fairly limited for who can use them, as far as I understand.