Those of you who were salivating over the prospect of a national pharmacare program (I’m guessing that would be the people who don’t have decent coverage through an employer), are out of luck — at least for the time being:
Prime Minister Paul Martin cold-shouldered the idea of a national pharmacare plan Thursday, suggesting the proposal from Canada’s premiers was too costly.
The health system faces too many pressures in various areas for the government to pour all that money into one new program, the prime minister suggested. — Alexander Panetta, CP
What Paul Martin is trying to say is that he still doesn’t have the foggiest notion how he’s going to fund the national daycare program he was talking smack about in the run-up to the last election, let alone a new program like this. It should be fun to watch Jack Layton tear strips out of Martin over both topics when the House resumes sitting on its thumb and rotating this fall.
If there’s good news to be had here, it’s that my generation, those annoying Gen-X’ers with kids, managed to screw over the Baby Boomers, the prescription drug gobbling demographic bulge from hell, on a significant social policy issue. That doesn’t happen often. Damn those Grey Power hooligans with their expensive political lobbyists and personal appliances that always flash 12:00, anyhow.
Welcome to the new Canada where our government has become a giant pinata. The role of The Citizen is to beat the living shit out of the aforementioned in the hopes of getting the goodies that they want. (Take that, bitch. THWAP!)
Ain’t democracy grand?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to whip up a Mocha Smoothie so I can savour this small and meaningless victory.