The short-sighted decision by the Toronto Liberals to cut eye exams from OHIP for adults aged 20 to 64 led to an increase in blindness among Ontario residents. Blinded by ever increasing budget deficits, the move to tax employer-sponsored health plans by the Trudeau Liberals is just another tax grab at the expense of your health.
When Quebec began taxing employer sponsored health plans, 20% of all employers stopped providing health plans. Out of those Quebecers who had lost their employer sponsored health plans only 15% purchased their own private plan.
If the experience in Quebec is replicated across Canada, 2.2 million Canadians will no longer have health plans.
If you lose your health plan at work and cannot afford to purchase a private health plan, it’s unlikely you will be able to afford preventive care like regular eye exams. And just like when the Ontario Liberals cut eye exams from OHIP, fewer people going for eye exams will result in more Canadians not being diagnosed in time to prevent vision loss.
According to the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, in 2007, the total financial cost of vision loss in Canada was estimated at $15.8 billion, and its prevalence was projected to double by the year 2032.
Taxing health plans would cost taxpayers an extra $3 billion directly, and the indirect financial costs to all Canadians will be in the tens of billions. But it is the cost to your health that makes this latest Trudeau Tax Target so upsetting.
We need to tell Trudeau his out of control spending should not come at the expense of Canadian’s eyesight.