Once more, during budget estimates for the Ministry of Finance today, I rose to ask the Minister about the elimination of the MSP. This time, rather than focusing on the government’s approach to replace the revenue through the creation of an employers’ health tax, I asked about the savings that the province will realize as a consequence of eliminating the MSP.

It looks like the province will save about $175 million annually through eliminated MSP premiums.

Below I reproduce the text and video of our exchange.

Text of Exchange

A. Weaver: I have two questions on this subject of the employer health tax. When the B.C. Green Party called for the elimination of MSP premiums a number of years ago, we were basing our decisions on how we would move forward on the Ontario model. One of the big reasons, as well, that we thought that — and one of the issues that I haven’t heard canvassed yet — was that there’s an enormous waste in the MSP system. We know that monthly bills go out month after month to people all across British Columbia. We know that credit agencies are given files where there’s a lot of debt that has never been paid.

My two questions to this: how much money is being saved by eliminating the monthly billing of the MSPs, and how much of the outstanding liability exists with respect to MSP premiums that have not been collected? What is the government planning to do to get some of that money back — if they have a possibility of getting it back at all?

Hon. C. James: Thank you for the question. I think the member has described exactly one of the many reasons, certainly one of the large reasons, that it’s important to eliminate medical service premiums.

I don’t think there’s anything that people have described as worse to administer. The member mentioned the challenges of administering it for government, the challenges of administering it as employers and then the individuals. So it trickles down.

I’m sure the member has heard the stories, as I have, of people who’ve left a job where they were paid their MSP premiums, gone to a job where they aren’t, trying to get back in — or the other way around — and be able to manage to figure out what they owe and have the billing be correct.

Seniors. I think the member mentioned this issue before, and I’ve certainly heard it — seniors in my office crying because they’ve received the collection notice. This was first time they received the notice. So I think it’s clear that that is something that has to be taken care of.

The contract it services will be about a $60 million savings, to end that contract for managing the medical service premium. The debt expense right now is $115 million, so that would be debt, obviously, that would need to be written off or collected. That’s roughly the amount each year. So that’s, again, a savings when you look at the bad debt that has to be covered each year.

Video of Exchange