A planned hike to B.C.’s Medical Services Plan premiums that was scheduled to take effect five months before the next provincial election has been axed.
The four per cent increase, which would have added up to $36 a year to adults’ premiums starting Jan. 1, is no longer necessary thanks to B.C.’s stronger-than-expected fiscal position, the government said Thursday.
Those eligible for regular premium assistance will also be seeing an additional four per cent reduction to their fees.
“Cancelling the planned rate increase and reducing the amount that people on premium assistance pay is yet another step toward fairer and progressive funding for health care,” Finance Minister Mike de Jong said in a statement.
As was announced with the 2016 budget, the government is still planning to eliminate premiums for children starting next year. That will save single parents with two kids under the age of 19 $900 a year.
But another change will mean couples with no kids who earn more than $45,000 will be paying an additional $168 in fees.
Michael Prince, political science professor with the University of Victoria, said the increase will ding hundreds of thousands of people.
“According to the government’s own numbers, 530,000 couples in British Columbia will see their MSP rates still go up come January the 1st, so if this is an unintended consequence they made a big gaffe in the announcement today,” Prince told CTV News.
Premier Christy Clark said even more changes are coming, and that the government is looking into the possibility of linking premiums to income tax.
Though Thursday's announcement is likely still welcome news to many families, the B.C. NDP said it’s time for to end MSP premiums altogether.
“B.C. is the only province in the country that has medical services premiums,” opposition leader John Horgan said at a press conference.
“They’ve been going up year after year after year, well ahead of the cost of inflation, and just before an election Christy Clark’s saying ‘I’m not going to hit you this year’ – but wait for the year after that.”
According to the government, MSP premiums fund about 14 per cent of the province’s overall health care budget, and total health care spending is forecast to top $19 billion for 2016-17.
The province said the reason it can scrap the planned premium hike is that it’s expecting a surplus of $1.9 billion, which is $1.6 billion more than was anticipated in the last budget.
Much of that is being credited to B.C.’s overheated real estate market, and the 15 per cent property transfer tax targeting foreign buyers.
With files from CTV Vancouver’s Bhinder Sajan and The Canadian Press
