The federal government should allow each province to decide which health-care services would best serve their populations, a report from the Montreal Economic Institute argues.
Ottawa plans to force the provinces to spend a portion of the federal health transfer on specific areas, such as mental-health programs and home-care services.
“Health care is an area of provincial jurisdiction, and it is provincial governments that must face their electorates and justify their actions,” Germain Belzile, senior associate researcher at the MEI and the author of the publication, said in a release.
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“Provincial politicians should be able to make decisions that are contrary to the federal government’s wishes and that would please their voters.”
He points out more decentralized health care would create more competition between provinces and allow them to develop — and share — best practices.
“A uniform national health policy reduces the opportunities for experiments and discoveries of best practices and ways of delivering services,” the report notes.
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Furthermore, it would encourage local politicians to pay more attention to their constituents’ wishes. “If [local politicians] choose to spend more in an area under their jurisdiction, they must also tax people more,” the report notes.
“In principle, this direct link between taxation and services leads decision-makers to a certain moderation, and encourages them to make sure that the population gets its money’s worth.”