Horwath – Ford’s backroom health care overhaul allows for privatization

Official Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath says the new health care bill opens up Ontario’s health care system to for-profit companies.

“Ontario families are worried about what Doug Ford cooked up behind closed doors,” said Horwath. “This bill opens the door to unprecedented levels of private and for-profit health care — which means precious health care dollars get siphoned away from patient care to pad profit margins of private companies.”

The Ford government’s health care takeover bill does not legislate that health care has to be publicly delivered — a basic principle of the Canada Health Act. The new Ontario Health Teams will be formed through a bidding process, apparently open to for-profit companies. The Teams will be allowed to contract health care delivery from for-profit companies.

Horwath also said she’s worried about how patients will be impacted by the Ford plan to eliminate vital, standalone agencies like Cancer Care Ontario. The 20 health agencies being scrapped employ 10,500 people.

“The Liberals left our world-class health care system hanging by a thread,” said Horwath. “Now, more than ever, Ontarians need every last health care dollar to go directly to delivering care and growing capacity — not yet another Conservative Mike Harris-style program of cuts and privatization.”

As premier, Harris fired 6,000 nurses and closed 28 hospitals.

“We need to expand Canadian medicare, not let Doug Ford punch holes in it.”