Health care and pensions cut leave seniors vulnerable!
By Alex Sangha
Stephen Harper has billions of dollars to spend on more prisons and jet fighters but he wants to cut spending on health care and pensions. He never mentioned this during the election campaign. Cutting health care and pensions leaves seniors vulnerable!
Canada is the envy of the world because of its universal health care program. It’s a significant to benefit to citizens, employers, and the country as a whole and it’s efficiently administered compared to the USA. In addition, the CPP, OAS, and GIS keep millions of seniors out of dire poverty in this country.
Harper may raise the OAS eligibility age from 65 to 67 and make it self-financing. There are a number of problems with this proposal.
· Not everyone can work until 67.
· Many people don’t earn enough money to save for their retirement because they are stuck in low income survival jobs.
· Some older people go through long periods of unemployment as they cannot find suitable jobs.
· Furthermore, many older people are all alone and don’t have families who can support them.
Harper is saying Canada cannot afford our current health care and pensions because of our aging population.
What is the solution?
· Invest in our future by paying families a significant bonus for having babies.
· Make adopting children from abroad a lot easier.
· Increase investor, economic, and labour immigration.
· Give Canadians the option of returning their pension cheques if they don’t need them every month.
· Give wealthy Canadians the option of making tax deductible donations to wipe out the debt and deficit.
· Canadians may be willing to pay higher premiums to safeguard their health care and pensions. Cutting spending and gutting programs is not the only solution. This may lead to the privatization and further erosion of our national social programs.
· The working population may be the first generation that does not live as long as their parents. This will reduce health care and pension costs in the long term.
· And make billionaires and the rich pay the same percentage of their income in taxes as someone making $100,000 per year. It’s about time for tax fairness!
Related posts:
- Cuts to federal health transfer payments undermine health care: NDP
- Local Liberals Dosanjh and Frey propose public solutions for public health care
- British Columbians expect and deserve access to quality public health care.
- Premier-designate must answer for Tim Hortons health care “solution”: Farnworth
- New residential care rates benefit low-income seniors
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on Feb 8 2012. Filed under Uncategorized.
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