Told you so, Dalton

Back in May, shortly after Dazzling Dalton McGuinty's government brought down their first Ontario budget, I dressed them down for ignoring the KISS principle. As I wrote at the time, I fully expected to see them come looking for more revenue but I was more than a little annoyed when they announced the return of the health care premium.

I am going to chime in alongside Andrew Spicer and ask why McGuinty didn't just raise income taxes rather than creating a separate premium for health care. It's not like the money doesn't come from the same source: the taxpayer. He's just made things more complicated not only for government, but for employers who have to deduct the thing from employees' pay cheques. Had he just tweaked the income tax rate up, he could have reduced it again if the opportunity presented itself.

It seemed obvious then, as it does now, that McGuinty was playing political games. He had promised in his election campaign that there would be no tax increases so he thought it would be cute to implement a premium instead, and to pretend that it was all about health care -- Canadians' favorite hot button issue -- and not about the deficit which he inherited (and claimed was much larger than expected, but that's another rant). Instead of looking for the simplest and smartest way to make policy he tried to do the politically expedient thing.

Well, it's less than six months later and it's just about time for the Law of Unintended Consequences to raise it's ugly but predictable head.

The spectre of Ontario's controversial health-care premium returned to haunt the Liberal government today amid a growing controversy over whether some unionized workers should be expected to pay for it.

Premier Dalton McGuinty, whose government shattered a key election promise by introducing the premium in May, had to defend it again after an arbitrator ruled that a Guelph nursing home should pay the premium for its employees because of an old clause in their collective agreement.

"Our intention is that taxpayers have to pay," McGuinty said.

Then why didn't you just do it with a tax increase, ya turkey?

The premium, which takes between $60 and $900 a year from taxpayers earning at least $20,000 annually, is running afoul of contracts with language dating back to the days of an earlier generation of health premiums.

Those contracts required employers to cover the cost of health insurance premiums, abolished in 1990. In the case of the Guelph nursing home, an arbitrator has decided the new premium is covered by the old clause.

And from the Department of Another Turkey Heard From, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara chimes in.

"My view is the Ontario health premium is the responsibility of individual taxpayers, that the legislation does not contemplate premiums as that notion is referred to in existing collective agreements, but, you know, we'll see."

The legislation does not contemplate? You mean you didn't think. Those collective agreements have the force of contract law. It doesn't matter what you "contemplated" when you were drafting the legislation if you didn't take it into account in what was actually written. Where do we find these guys?

And to add insult to injury (for me anyway), it was Conservative house leader Bob Runciman who really nailed it.

Conservative house leader Bob Runciman warned that the province is in a precarious position with respect to public-sector workers, who are effectively under the employ of the government.

Should school board employees or hospital workers be exempted from paying the premium, the taxpayer would end up holding the bag - in addition to already paying their own premium, Runciman said.

"There would be a lot of Ontarians who would be damned upset about the fact that they're paying out of one pocket for this health-care premium, and then out of the other pocket they're paying for public-sector workers' health-care premiums as well," he said.

So if a large number of provincial public servants end up having their premiums paid for by the government, and if, in the meantime, we blow a wad on lawyers and arbitrators trying to straighten this mess out, aren't we just about back where we started? And don't ask me to get mad at the unions about it because I won't have it. This is entirely on the politicians' heads.

To review: McGuinty implemented a premium instead of a tax increase to avoid being criticized for breaking a promise, but it was such a transparent maneuver that he's taking the heat anyway. And because he tried to be cute it looks as though the revenue actually raised through this policy will be substantially less than planned because the government, as employer, may have to pay the premiums on behalf of its employees. So in addition to looking like he broke his promise and cynically tried to skate around it, now he looks like an incompetent fool as well and may just further enrage all those who have to pay the premium out of their own pockets. It's almost a textbook case of blowback.

Moron.

Though I have to admit it's been a long day and I needed the rant.