mental health program

Improve the mental health system

According to a press release of 9 May 2006, the “Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology” in Canada recommended the creation of a Canadian Mental Health Commission is responsible for the significantly upgrade Canada’s system of mental health. As Senator Michael Kirby, chairman of the committee, said: “The Senate is to improve service, quality and organization of health services and support that are required by the tens committed thousands of Canadians living with mental illness and addiction.”

The financing of the proposed amendment

Based on a comprehensive three-year study on mental health and substance abuse, the Committee determined that it was $ 5360000000 for over 10 years for the upgrade of the mental health system costs. Where will the money come from? The Committee believes that the revenue will come from increasing the excise duty on alcoholic drinks by 5 cents per drink.

Part of the reason for the increase of 5 cents per drink was apparently the target of raising funds for the proposed changes in the psychiatric system. Another factor to justify the price increase, however, was that there is going to cost any alcoholic beverage, drink less alcohol, more Canadian products such as beer and wine instead of liquor.

Do the math

At first glance this proposal seems to make sense. Why are not the ones to fund a program that will provide a mental health system better to drink? Why not let those who are part of the “problem” part of the “solution” be? This logic seems sound until you do the math. 5360000000 If $ is needed to better contribute to the financing of mental health, then, how many drinks should be consumed in ten years to reach $ 5.36 billion in a period of time? The answer: 107 200 000 000 drinks. It is 107 billion, 200 million beverage.

In order to accomplish this, how many glasses per year, all we need do, is to divide that number by 10 (for the ten-year program) and the result is 10,720,000,000th This is still a large number, which can fortunately be “massaged” even more. According to the website World Factbook, Canada had a population of 33 million people estimated in 2006. Divided by 325, equivalent to 10.72 billion 33,000,000th Set them understand about the average person can, every man, woman and child in Canada alcoholic beverages to 325 per year for the next 10 years to fund new mental health system! In other words, these figures are not realistic.

Other defects

The “logic” of the proposed mental health program also breaks down when it is discussed in more depth. For example, why people drink less alcohol products like beer, when the excise tax increase applies to all alcoholic beverages? To understand this better, we use an example. Let us assume that the average intake in Canada currently costs $ 3.00 and the average beer costs $ 1.00. Based on the increased price, if Joe drank an average of 5 shots per week, spending an average weekly alcohol will be $ 15.25. If the numbers are calculated, which is out of 1.7% would be more happening than Joe, have suggested before the tax increase. Have a similar exercise with beer. Based on the expected price increase, if Pete drinks 5 beers on average per week, spending an average weekly alcohol will be $ 5.25. If the numbers are calculated, which is out to be 5% higher than Pete had passed before the tax increase proposed. The point: Since the proposed price increase is more alcohol products (such as plans) proportionately less than their low-alcohol (like beer), why the Canadians spend more than low-alcohol products?

Alcohol and mind

One other question. What is that you know, tens of thousands of Canadians and that alcohol was not for her “mental health” to significantly reduce their drinking water well or quit drinking without alcohol? Where does the money come from to compensate for this lack of income? Even if you decide to drink thousands and thousands of Canadians, the alcoholic drinks that they do not want to pay additional excise duty and therefore, stop to drink alcoholic beverages? When this happens the government to transform the mental health system money? In other words, the Canadian government has a “Plan B” to be realistic, this great change?

A logical contradiction

From another angle, it is not ironic that those who pay for alcoholic beverages are outdated for the mental health system? Is not that a contradiction in the logic somewhere in this proposal? That is, when tens of thousands of Canadians suffer from mental illness or alcohol or drug abuser, not the government would want to drink less alcohol, the Canadians to reduce alcohol abuse and alcoholism existing alcohol problems in mental health? But from within the current proposal for mental health, from a purely financial standpoint, it seems that the Canadian government, the bank full upgrade of the mental health, based on historical data, which strongly suggests that Canadians continue drinking at the current level or increased consumption.

Miscalculations budget

What happens, for example, if there are cost overruns in the proposed mental health system? Of course there are two “easy” solutions to this problem: increasing the excise tax on each drink or motivate Canadians to consume more alcohol. Or “solution” lies in the fact that in order to “work”, the mental health system improvements will be financed by Canadians to consume alcoholic beverages on.

Completion

It seems logical to conclude that the Canadian Mental Health needs an overhaul. Exhaustive, as with most government programs, but the question of financing is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome. The upgrade of the mental health of Canada proposed system is no exception. Based on the above reasons, it seems clear that the Canadian government needs to happen to other sources of revenue generation for this exciting project. In fact, to emphasize a big “mistake” in the current proposal, consider the following question: When is drinking response “good thing”: If it means a national network of modernization of the mental health system. Something tells me that Andy Rooney of “60 Minutes” would have a lot of fun with him.

Copyright 2007 – Denny Soinski. All rights reserved. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as all links active, do not change the article in any way, and the name of the author.