Federal health care plan “absolutely negotiable”: Dexter

Nova Scotia’s Premier is not accepting the federal government’s plan to change the health care funding formula as a done deal.

Finance ministers were told there would be no consultation on the plan when it was announce Monday in Victoria.

“Absolutely, it’s negotiable,” Darrell Dexter told the Canadian Press. “This is the pre-positioning the government has taken. First of all, they know and we know there will be another election between now and what their commitment is now.”

Under the deal announced by federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, health transfers will increase by six per cent until 2017, but will be linked to the growth the province’s nominal GDP thereafter.

Dexter said under this plan, rich provinces will get richer and poor provinces will get poorer.

“It will essentially divide the country into wealthy provinces that have a better ability to provide health care and those with a lesser ability to provide the same services,” he said.

Dexter says he may not sign a deal that goes beyond five years if the Harper government isn’t prepared to show some flexibility.

Dalhousie University economics professor Lars Osberg agreed the plan will hurt provinces such as Nova Scotia.

“You can look forward to more and more of a withdrawal of funding from Nova Scotia,” Osberg told Global News. “The federal government will shift more of its funding to Alberta in particular.”

The premiers of all four Atlantic provinces have emphatically denounced the new formula. New Brunswick Premier David Alward said it’s unacceptable that the federal government came forward with a unilateral proposal without consultation.

New Brunswick finance minister Blaine Higgs said the federal government is missing an opportunity to have provinces work together and ensure health care is delivered equitably across the country.

Alberta’s premier, however, is supporting the deal.

Alison Redford says Ottawa recognizes Alberta gets a lower per-capita Canada Health Transfer than other provinces

“I think GDP at the moment is appropriate and the fact that we’re being treated fairly really is a tremendous success,” said Alison Redford. “I think that at the end of the day – and we haven’t done the calculations yet. I’ve ask for them to be done – that it’s going to leave us with some net improvement in what that transfer looks like.”

Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall thinks there should be other opportunities to get more money from Ottawa for innovations to improve patient care.