The group of Quebec Doctors for the Public Plan (MQRP) rejects the announcement of a tax for unvaccinated adults, a measure deemed “unacceptable”.
Posted at 2:53 p.m.
“We fear a slippery slope towards an even more important commodification of health”, one can read in a press release published on Wednesday. The financing model of the Quebec health system is based on the taxation of a patient’s income, not on “the burden of (his) risk factors” such as his vaccination status, argued the Quebec Doctors for the Public Plan ( MQRP).
On Tuesday, the Quebec government announced at a press briefing the imposition of a health contribution on unvaccinated adults. All those who will not agree to fetch at least one dose over the next few weeks will have to pay a “significant” amount, argued Prime Minister François Legault.
The Quebec Doctors for the Public Plan (MQRP) believe that the shortage of personnel and the current service disruptions are due to “erratic management and (un) chronic underfunding” in recent decades and not to the unvaccinated population. “A better supported system would manage to treat more easily a population with an immunization coverage of 88%”, they argued.
In the letter published on Wednesday, the group of doctors stressed the lack of resources to reach underprivileged populations, in order to sensitize them to vaccination. “Some people certainly choose not to be vaccinated out of belief or conviction, but we also believe that many people are not vaccinated for lack of suitable access,” they wrote.