More than 500,000 B.C. couples are bracing for a 10 per cent increase in their Medical Services Plan premiums next month.
Couples earning more than $45,000 a year and senior couples making more than $51,000 will see their monthly premiums rise to $150 from $136.
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The rate, first announced in Budget 2016 last February, was initially slated to rise 14 per cent to $156. The provincial government softened the blow when it cancelled a four per cent MSP hike in September, but left in place the increase for couples.
NDP Leader John Horgan held a news conference Tuesday with a couple from his Juan de Fuca constituency to highlight the pending increase.
Sandra Carmichael, 74, said she was “shocked” to receive a recent letter from government stating that she and her husband, Gord, a retired air force veteran, will have to pay $14 more a month starting in January. Their annual bill will climb by $168 to $1,800.
Carmichael, who works for the Royal Canadian Legion, declined to reveal their income, but said they earn above the $51,000 cutoff for premium assistance.
“Everything is going up,” she said. “This has gone up. My ICBC is going up. My hydro is going up. I would like to retire, possibly next year, and know that I’m going to be OK.”
The province argues that its changes to the Medical Services Plan in Budget 2016 improved fairness and affordability by increasing the number of people eligible for reduced premiums, and eliminating premiums for all children.
A single mother with two children will now pay for one person instead of three and could save $900 a year if she earns more than $48,000. The savings increase to as much as $1,248 for someone earning less than that.
“By January 2017, approximately 40 per cent of B.C. families will pay reduced premiums or no premiums at all,” the finance ministry said in a statement. “Once the changes have been implemented an estimated two million British Columbians will pay no premiums.”
Horgan, however, called the MSP system unfair because people making above the threshold for premium assistance pay the same rate whether they earn $43,000 a year or $400,000.
He pledged to eliminate MSP premiums if elected premier in the provincial election May 9. But he declined to provide details of his plan or explain how an NDP government would replace the $2.5 billion in revenue the premiums generate.
Horgan said he will wait until after the Liberals’ budget in February before laying out his party’s strategy to change the system. “Every other province in the country has found a way to provide medical services without having a flat, unfair regressive tax,” he said. “Certainly in British Columbia we can do that, as well.”
