Advisors join debate about Romanow recommendations in Talvest Town Hall

(December 6, 2002) Financial advisors used Advisor.ca’s Talvest Town Hall chat forum to add their voices to the healthcare debate launched by the final report of a royal commission chaired by Roy Romanow.

The Romanow commission said the federal government should spend an additional $15 billion on public healthcare over the next four years. The commission also urged Ottawa to commit to creating a stable funding base for future health needs. The report was released last week.

Romanow also proposed the creation of a national home care program and advocated additional funding for the cost of prescription drug plans and catastrophic drug treatments.

The former Saskatchewan premier said he believes the necessary funding can come from current federal surpluses, not through higher taxation.

“We will pay more for healthcare and it will be directly through increased fees or taxation and indirectly through unnecessary deaths created by the inefficiencies of our system. We also pay more through costs such as critical illness premiums,” said an advisor identified as Chuck, in the Talvest Town Hall this week. (Click here to join the conversation.)

“Smoke-and-mirror ‘dedicated healthcare taxes’ is just a new way to raise taxes. At some point there has to be a limit to taxation,” added an advisor identified as Kevin.

Pension plan consultants have said the Romanow recommendations, if implemented, would benefit pension plan sponsors. Under the proposals, many costs would be picked up by Ottawa, such as catastrophic drug coverage.

Share your thoughts on the Romanow report by sending a message to the “Free For All” forum of the Talvest Town Hall on Advisor.ca.

Filed by Jim MacDonald, Advisor.ca, jmacdonald@advisor.ca.

(12/06/02)

The opinions expressed in the online messages posted to any of the forums of the Talvest Town Hall are strictly those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the staff of Talvest Fund Management, Advisor.ca or Rogers Media. Material contained in the Talvest Town Hall forums is for information purposes only.