Dear editor,
I was struck by a letter to the editor in the Feb. 2 edition of the paper (COVID didn’t create the inadequacy of our medical system; it simply exposed it) where the writer kept referring to our “free” health care system. It was repeated several times as if it was the truth.
In fact, our health care system is not “free.” We pay for it with government funds which come from our tax dollars.
As of 2019, Canada was spending $6,666 per person on a health care system that spends more on sickness than it does on health.
Health care spending is the largest portion of every provincial budget, again money that comes from our tax dollars. Maybe we don’t pay cash upfront at the doctor’s office or the hospital, but we are paying for it through allocations of tax dollars.
Pam Munroe,
Courtenay