NDP skimping on brand name medications
More than 20,000 patients with chronic diseases including diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis will have six months to switch to less expensive copycat drugs as B.C. becomes the first province to stop covering some expensive, formerly patented drugs.
These copycat drugs do not respond to everyone in the same way. Example, you buy a can of no name green beans at the grocery store. These beans do not have the same taste as a branded product such as beans from Green Giant. NDP Health Minister Adrian Dix said the government will save over $100 million over three years. Dix says the savings will be used to fund other drugs presently not covered under the government health insurance plan. We will have to wait and see about this. The outcome will be he will do nothing and the public will forget about it.
B.C. is the first province to do this. Why? The NDP needs the money to cover for the high cost of infrastructure projects. Your NDP minority government know nothing about finances. They have introduced a new policy that affects all infrastructure projects in the province of B.C. That is new infrastructure projects must be paid in union wage scales. The first infrastructure project to abide by the new policy is highway work on Highway 1 near Revelstoke, B.C. Initial cost of the project was $62.9 million. With the new wage policy added on, the total cost of the project will now be $85.2 million. Total insanity from a taxpayer’s point of view. Not one of the NDP MLAs would ever abide to this when it comes to their own personal expenses. Example. Adrian Dix needs a new roof on his home. Adrian Dix would get three quotations and give the job to the lowest bid.
The standard policy in all provincial and federal governments is take the lowest bid 100 per cent of the time. Why? All bids are comparing apples to apples. Taking the lowest bid is to the benefit of all Canadians that pay taxes.
Here in B.C., the NDP government has chosen buying votes over healthcare. Their thinking is that paying union wages will give them a vote at election time. What they never figured was where is all of the extra funds going to come from? They start with prescriptions, a complete no, no.
More infrastructure on the way including more cuts elsewhere, but do not blame the NDP government. Blame those taxpayers that voted NDP saying that they deserve another chance.
Nonsense. Look what happened next door in Alberta. NDP ousted after only one term. Also ousted after one term in B.C., Ontario, and Nova Scotia.
Former NDP premier Glen Clark was the one that introduced this wage policy of union wages when his government built the Vancouver Island inland highway.
Construction of the inland island highway consisted of land clearing, filling in swamp land, and building some bridges.
Former B.C. Social Credit premier Bill Bennett’s government built the Coquihalla highway, which was solid rock.
The amusing fact was, but not to the B.C. taxpayers, is that the inland island highway cost $50 million more than the Coquihalla highway, all because of the union wage policy.
In summary, do you NDP voters actually agree that buying votes is better than supplying brand name drug medications? If so, you are living with a guilty conscience. Unbelievable!
Joe Sawchuk
Duncan