The federal government is clawing back $1.3 million in health transfer payments from Latest Brunswick mainly in response to user fees that patients paid for medically needed services.
“There ought to be no fees for medically needed health-care services, wherever people may live on this country,” Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said at a news conference Friday in Ottawa.
A complete of $1,277,659 can be taken back based on a federal estimate of how much Latest Brunswickers paid for diagnostic imaging akin to MRI and CT scans in 2020-21.
An extra $64,850 is being clawed back due to abortion access within the province.
The $1,342,509 total represents a sliver of the $1 billion Canada Health Transfer payment from the federal government to Latest Brunswick for 2023-24.
It represents an excellent smaller portion of the $3.2 billion the province planned to spend on health in the present fiscal yr.
Overall, the federal government is clawing back $82.5 million from provinces across the country. Half of that’s from Quebec.
The Canada Health Act prohibits charging “insured individuals” for medically needed services.
The minister said the deductions could possibly be refunded if provinces change their approach so people don’t pay fees for medically needed care. Duclos pointed to British Columbia, which has seen its deductions reduced after making changes.
The deduction for abortion pertains to the shortage of abortion services outside hospitals in Latest Brunswick.
Abortions as much as 13 weeks of pregnancy are covered by Medicare at two hospitals in Moncton and one in Bathurst.
Nevertheless, it has refused to fund the procedure on the private Clinic 554 in Fredericton. The province has said the hospital services are sufficient to satisfy demand.
A federally commissioned study on the difficulty is anticipated to be accomplished in June.
The province said in a press release Friday that it’s aware of the federal decision and is assessing its implications.