Means testing will inflame the politics of jealousy. Example: I paid a lot of taxes all my life. I became ill, I couldn't work. The PharmaCare program looked at my preceding income & announced I didn't qualify for drug subsidy - despite having no income. 

How did that make me feel - knowing I had paid for years into a program that was for everyone except for those who paid into it?  The key to Canada's success in universal health care is its universality. Take that away & you alienate the very people needed to ensure continued funding. 

Easy to say, "Too bad, the successful will have to pay tax whether or not they can collect any benefits," but that is shortsighted. Once healed, I made a decision to not work as much, to not cross the next tax threshold, to collect every receipt and to ensure I minimised the tax I pay using every legal strategy. The government is down about $45,000 last year, all because they tried to cheat me. Currently it is left-wing policy to apply means tests.

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