Rustad’s Vancouver Island candidates support American-style two-tier healthcare

John Rustad (Photo: John Rustad/Facebook)

VICTORIA – Since the BC election campaign officially kicked off on September 21, two BC Conservative candidates on Vancouver Island have told supporters they want to bring American-style two-tier health care to BC in comments captured on video and audio.

“These aren’t comments from a few years ago or even a few months ago – multiple BC Conservative candidates on Vancouver Island are campaigning on the idea of bringing American-style two-tier health care to BC,” said Grace Lore, BC NDP candidate for Victoria-Beacon Hill. “John Rustad plans to cut billions out of health care, which means fewer doctors and nurses. It’s clear where he’s headed – towards two-tier healthcare that will mean longer waits and worse care for you.”

In recordings from two separate campaign events in late September, Rustad’s Island candidates described their plans for health care. Victoria-Beacon Hill candidate Tim Thielmann expressed support for “a hybrid system or a two-tier system,” and North Island candidate Anna Kindy described a system where some people “pay from their own pockets.”

“Two-tier health care would mean a few wealthy people get to skip the line, while healthcare gets worse for the rest of us. Those aren’t our values in BC,” said Michelle Babchuk, NDP candidate for North Island. “John Rustad’s plan would mean waiting longer for worse care. It’s a risk families on Vancouver Island can’t afford.”

Rustad’s candidates on health care:

“What I tell them at the door is: you don’t take out your credit card. Nothing changes right now… Whether, you know, five years down the road, or if you have a new federal government, we bring in, on the payment side, more opportunities to pay out of pocket or for private insurance, that’s sort of a question for another day.”

-Tim Thielmann, BC Conservative Candidate for Victoria-Beacon Hill, September 25, 2024, Healthcare discussion.

“You know, talking about the Australian model and models in Europe where you have a hybrid system or a two-tier system, call it what you want. Where if people want to purchase private insurance, want to pay out of pocket, and you know where doctors want to run their own practices and charge either the publicly insurable rate or rates that are above that, they can do that, and they have the freedom to do so. That’s what I personally think is the way that we need to go just because the outcomes are so much better, and it works. But that’s not what the party has proposed right now. It’s just more private/public partnerships and the delivery of health care services.”

-Tim Thielmann, BC Conservative Candidate for Victoria-Beacon Hill, September 25, 2024, Healthcare discussion.

“But eventually what happens is, you know, you open up to a private system, which we already have, but you open it up so that there’s competition and some people will want to pay. So you get them off the list so they pay from their own pockets because they want to. That’s great, right?”

-Anna Kindy, BC Conservative Candidate for North Island, September 28, 2024, Quadra Meet and Greet.