It's a myth that our health-care system is unsustainable

Costs might continue to rise but they are controllable

Medicare spending eats up roughly the same proportion of provincial revenues as it did 20 years ago, Evans told the MPs. "The problem isn't uncontrolled public healthcare spending," Evans said, according to a statement. "It's uncontrolled private health spending combined with a drop in provincial revenues created by large tax cuts over the years."

Publicly funded costs might look like they have increased, but that's because federal and provincial governments went on a massive tax-cutting mission between 1997 and 2004, resulting in the loss of $170.8 billion from public-sector revenues, according to Evans. With the public revenue pie smaller -$35 billion a year smaller at the provincial level -of course the share consumed by public health care spending looked like it was bigger.

Dr. Robert G. Evans of the University of British Columbia, one of the world's leading health economists.

(Montreal Gazette August 20,2010)

For more information: Website of the Canadian Health Coalition (Medicare.ca)