🇨🇦 Refugees asked to pay $4 per prescription and doctors lose their minds

Canada just ended decades of free dental, vision, mental health counselling, and drug coverage for refugee claimants by imposing a $4 prescription fee and 30 per cent cost-sharing on supplemental services. The Canadian Medical Association, Paediatric Society, and a parade of advocacy groups are outraged that newcomers might contribute literally anything to their own care. Meanwhile, actual Canadian citizens pay full freight for dental and vision while waiting months for family doctors they'll never get.

This is the state of our compassion economy: refugees had better coverage than most working Canadians, and asking them to chip in pocket change is framed as a humanitarian crisis. The entitlement is structural and the double standard is the policy. Sovereignty means your own citizens come first, but Ottawa forgot that part somewhere between the airport and the subsidized housing waitlist.

🍁 Maple Chronicles