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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
I’d be curious to hear opendoor’s suggestions for increasing resources. What’s the political path to Canada reaching substantially higher levels of public health spending? We could follow Japan’s lead and run massive, historically unprecedented budget deficits year after year. Or adopt Northern European taxation models - but which political party is campaigning on raising the GST to 15 per cent and across-the-board income tax hikes, and what are their odds of getting elected on such a platform?
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I'm not sure how popular changes would be politically, but then again a failing healthcare system also isn't going to be popular. If it was up to me, I'd increase payroll/social security taxes and bump the GST back to 7%; that would generate a fair bit of revenue. Canada is 31st in the OECD in social security contributions as a % of GDP and 35th in goods and services taxes, so I think it's fair to say that there's room to increase there and it really wouldn't change a whole lot from the average person's perspective. The CPP changes basically went unnoticed by most people.
I'd also be significantly more aggressive about clawing back OAS and divert the savings to healthcare. The fact that a couple earning $170K in retirement can get full OAS is asinine. As is the fact that a couple earning almost $300K could get anything at all.
I'd also probably tie the eligibility in to wealth. There's no reason a retired couple earning $100K in retirement who are sitting on a paid off $2M house and a $1M stock portfolio needs a dime from the government. The fact that OAS and GIS are soon going to be a bigger expense than healthcare for the Federal government is clearly unsustainable, and there is zero argument that paying more money to seniors who don't need it will generate more public good than a stronger healthcare system.