It doesn't matter what political stripe the government is in Manitoba, they all cry poverty and play the federal blame game. The province continues to demand more and more dollars for health, which already swallows over $3 billion of our $7.3 billion provincial budget. With their "gimme, gimme, gimme" mentality, the province gladly takes whatever they can get, but, one has to ask - where is the money going?

When Manitoba, like most other provinces and territories, moved to a system of regionalization the goal was to save costs and deliver health care in a timely fashion to residents. Proponents of regionalization argued that this approach has resulted in more integration of services in metropolitan and rural areas. Those on the other side of the debate point out with the same certainty that former provincial health care bureaucracies have merely been offloaded and duplicated in a small-scale version in each region.

Recent reports have shown that the years following regionalization in Manitoba in 1997, administrative costs for the Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) have skyrocketed. In 1999 the RHAs across the province had administrative costs of $18.7 million, that figure in 2003 has ballooned to $37 million. The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority had their administrative costs nearly triple from $5.7 million in 1999 to $16.7 million in 2003. It is little wonder why the Opposition PCs have called for a review of the regionalization model in Manitoba.

The NDP has always prided themselves as the saviours of our ailing health care system. But what they call "investing" in health care could be better described as pouring money down a bottomless pit. If spending continues the way it has on health care, the Province of Manitoba will go bust by 2047 with health expenditures consuming 100% of the budget. No politician, however, is prepared to acknowledge this fact. Instead we hear myths from Health Minister Dave Chomiak standing on his taxpayer funded soapbox declaring we have the best health care system in the world. If that were truly the case, then why the need to spend $70,000 on a doctor recruitment and retention report, or a $200,000 ad campaign for nurses, or $65,000 a month for an empty building?

Another myth perpetuated by politicians is that health care in Canada is "free." Of course this assertion is ridiculous since we spend over $68 billion annually on health care, a pricetag that continues to grow with no signs of declining in future.

As we continue down the road of paying for an unsustainable health care system where services have not improved, our provincial government is directionless commissioning worthless reports, spending money on feel good ads and playing the political blame game.

So next time you hear the provincial government crying poverty and asking for more money, ask yourself this question - where has the money we have already given you gone?