BY VOICE STAFF
(TORONTO) – According to an NDP news release issued Saturday, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath announced that if elected premier, she’ll implement Dental Care for Everyone, a plan that will evidently provide universal dental care in Ontario.
“Every three minutes in Ontario, someone visits a doctor’s office or emergency room to get care for a dental problem,” said Horwath. “No one in Ontario should have to live in pain, or deal with the lifelong damage of going without dental care. No one should have to rack up credit card bills just to get the dental care they need for themselves—or for their kids.
The news release asserts that 4.5 million Ontarians do not presently have dental coverage, and that the NDP proposal would include, "everyone – all workers, people receiving social assistance, seniors and children.”
Announced before a crowd of hundreds of supporters in downtown Toronto, Horwath revealed the dental plan as one of five major changes she would propose as premier. They are:
- Providing drug and dental coverage for all Ontarians
- Ending "hallway medicine" and "fixing seniors care"
- Cutting hydro bills 30 percent by bringing Hydro One back into public hands
- Taking on student debt by converting loans to grants
- "Protecting middle class families by having the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations pay their fair share," which seems to imply a tax increase on upper earners.
“We don’t have to settle in Ontario,” said Horwath.
“We don’t have to settle for families being squeezed and life getting harder here as costs rise and salaries do not. We don’t have to settle for health care being cut by the Conservatives, and then cut by the Liberals. We don’t have to settle for privatized hydro and sky-high bills. For too long in Ontario, we’ve settled for bad or worse when it comes to premiers—and look where it’s gotten us."
The news release states that Horwath will soon reveal a full election platform. The provincial election must be held on or before June 15.
