on

4 Terrace Revie

Hospital fees |
‘may be gone

'?

w— Wednesday, December 31, 1986

eo.

~ by spring 1987

TERRACE — Mills
Memorial Hospital ad-.

ministrator Norm Carelius
said recently the elimina-' ©
tion of user fees at the -

Terrace hospital would
have a positive effect on
hospital operations by
making life simpler for the
bookkeeping staff.
Carelius said the primary

_ difficulty in the user fee

structure, which levies
charges of $10 for
emergency service and
$8.50 per day for hospital
in-patients, is the extra

‘ paperwork the system

creates and problems in
collecting fees from
discharged patients.

He expressed concern,

- however, about replacing

the lost operating revenue

from the fees. Although
‘he was unable to specify

the dollar value collected
through fees, Carelius said
the provincial government
will have to make up the
‘loss through additional
Ministry of Health fun-
ding. ‘‘I hope they do so
in an expeditious manner,
with no hiatus that would

leave us in a deficit posi-

logking ,at ways

tion,’’ he said.

Premier Vander Zalm
recently announced the
B.C, government will be
of

: abolishing* the fee struc-
ture by the end of March
- 1987. In an interview from

Victoria, Ian Smith, an in-
formation officer for the
Ministry of Health, ex-

plained that the date is a

vst ite

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Review

Established May 1, 1985

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po

loss
revenues.
Canada Health Act, Smith

deadline stipulated by the
Canada Health Act.

The Canada Health Act

was passed by the federal

government in July 1984,
and one of its provisions is
that federal health care
transfer payments will be
withheld from any pro-
vince which charges user

' fees for hospital services.

Smith said the amount
withheld corresponds
dollar-for-dollar-. to the
amount collected by the
province in fees. The
money, which will total
about $85 million by the
end of March, is currently
being held in trust by Ot-
tawa, but if the B.C.
government fails to act on
the user fee situation by
the March deadline the
opportunity to recover
that money will be lost.

Smith said the an-
nouncement concerning
elimination of. the fees
originated in the Premier’s
office, and the Ministry of
Health has not received
details of how hospital

financing would be:

restructured around the
of the user fee
Before the

said, the province had the
benefit of revenues from
‘both user fees and federal
transfer payments; when
Ottawa began holding
back transfer payments,
the B.C. government tack-
ed the shortfall onto the
provincial deficit rather
than reducing the health
care budget. The $85:
million owing to the pro-
vince, he said, will go into
the general revenue fund
and not directly into
health care.

B.C. residents presently
pay for hospital operating
costs through provincial
income taxes, federal in-
come taxes and user fees,
Regional Hospital District
taxation. provides for
capital costs and equip-
ment replacement, and
premiums paid to the
Medical Services Plan are
applied against physi-
cians’ fees.

Hospital user fees pro-
vide the government with
about two percent of the
annual $1.5 billion health
care budget.

Smith was unable to
speculate whether taxes or
medical plan premiums
will go up as a result of
eliminating the fees. ‘‘It
remains to be seen how the
shortfall will be made
up,’ he said. ,

yu

5

ST
< S

BC GT LOUOR STORE

WSO

WILL WE CONSIDER
AN OFFER.

‘Stop waiting for premier

Vander Zalm to
‘self destruct

By now, it should have become clear to the NDP and

all other interested parties that Premier Vander Zalm-

isn’t about to self-destruct.

Fond hopes in various quarters that the premier of
past foot-in-the-mouth disease will have a relapse have
been dashed by a Vander Zalm most people didn’t see
before. ;

Not that I ever expected Vander Zalm, the premier, to
behave as outrageously as Vander Zalm, the cabinet

- minister. 1 didn’t and J got columns to prove it. But a lot

of people did, and they are now somewhat hard-pressed
to explain why Vander Zalm hasn’t tripped over his
tongue yet.

Oh, there have been a couple of close calls. In the case
of the touch-and-go lumber tariff negotiations, Vander
Zalm announced a settlement when there was none. But
he backtracked fast and, in my opinion, quite convinc-
ingly.

His foray into the movie business was also potentially
disastrous. Not that there is anything illegal-or immoral
about his role in the Dutch fairy tale movie, featuring
our premier flying to Canada on a rainbow. The danger
here is ridicule, the most lethal of all traps for a politi-
cian, Yet, he escaped unharmed. .

Aside from these and a couple of other minor
stumbles, however, Vander Zalm has managed to avoid
all pitfalls, and his political adversaries are asking: how
come?

The answer is simple. His adversaries have under-
estimated his political acumen: Vander Zalm is a con-

-summate politician, always has been, He has the ability -

to assess the mood of the public and say exactly what a
great majority wantsto hear,

Let's look at a few examples. When Vander Zalm was
a cabinet minister, he once said that public servants
weren't worth the money they get. At best, he said, they
delivered three days’ work for five days’ pay.

When an employee of his ministry criticized. him for
his remarks,. reporters asked Vander Zalm what he
thought of a public servant chastising a minister.

Vander Zalm replied there was room in his ministry
for people who criticized him — room in Fort St. John,
room in Fort Nelson, room in Atlin,

Except for government employees, the public loved it.
Public-servant bashing has always been a favorite
pastime in British Columbia, next only to union-
bashing. Anyone taking on the bureaucrats is assured of

support.

His remark that welfare recipients be given shovels-to
earn their keep was equally successful. There are a hell

Hubert
Beyer

Terrace Review
Victoria Correspondent 7

of a lot more people working than are on welfare, and
it’s not very difficult to appeal to their baser instincts,
one of which rules the pocket book,

But his political opponents have waited in vain for
Vander Zalm to give similar performances as premier,
and they will continue to wait in vain.

Nobody knows better than the premier that he cannot
afford to be a verbal scatter gun in his present position.
His political instinct turns on warning lights all over the
place whenever he wanders too close to an open man-
hole.

That instinct served him well during the election cam-
paign. He only said the things the public wanted to hear,
not those his opponents wanted him to say.

When Vander Zalm took the Socreds into the last
campaign, the public had had a belly-full of political
rhetoric. For years; Bill Bennett had told them that
good times were just.around the corner, if only they
made the sacrifices demanded of them by restraint.

They made the sacrifices all right, but the promised
good times never came. Things got worse instead, At
one point, BC’s unemployment was second only to that
of Newfoundland.

That’s why Vander Zalm didn’t talk about specifics,

giving us Vander Zalm, the quiet and reflective

statesman instead,
And again, his instinct didn’t let him down. His over-
whelming victory was proof that the last thing the public

wanted was more of the same old political rhetoric. And —

as I said at the outset, he has used that same political in-
stinct to stay out of trouble since the election.
All of which would make it seem like a good idea if

the NDP quit waiting for Vander Zalm to dig his own

political grave, and came up, instead, with a few ideas
of their own to defeat the Socreds in the next election,
or the one after, or the one after that.

Letters to the editor will be considered for publication only whan
signed. Please include your phone number. The editor reserves the
right to condense and edit fetters. Opinions expressed aré not
necessarily those of the Terrace Review. .-

- BUCKLE UP!

Seat belts save lives.

NT a eb ET

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