The majority of Yukoners who responded to a recent survey on health care don't want to see new and expanded user fees, but they don't want see current service levels compromised either.

The results, garnered from mail-out questionnaires and community consultations across the territory earlier this year, were released last week.

While the report is called Taking the Pulse, only 830 of the 12,488 questionnaires (6.6 per cent) were completed.

Collecting this data is a government-appointed steering committee, chaired by Dr. Allon Reddoch, who was unable to provide attendance figures for consultations in six communities.

Reddoch said those numbers will be in the final report, intended to summarize residents' opinions on the state of the Yukon's health care system and what steps could be taken to make it more effective and cost-efficient.

Last September, the government released its Yukon Health Care Review containing 43 recommendations, many of which are aimed at cutting costs as current spending on health care in the territory is unsustainable.

Among suggestions were raising the $18 to $22/day fee charged to patients in long-term care and adding user fees for non-emergency, out-of-territory medical travel.

"It's not to make recommendations," Reddoch said of the committee's role.

"It's to tell the legislative oversight committee what we heard ...what people think of the Yukon's health care system."

Forty-six per cent of questionnaire respondents disagreed with managing Health and Social Services expenditures as a zero sum game – adding or expanding services would mean reducing or eliminating something else.

On the flip side, 53 per cent of respondents agreed that the government direct more of its annual budget toward Health, leaving less money for other government services, while 48 per cent were against raising taxes to cover any budget shortfalls.

This year, the Health and Social Services' price tag is $229 million; 23 per cent of the government's record billion-dollar budget and a 14 per cent increase in health care spending over last year.

If this trend continues unchecked, the territorial government could be staring down the barrel of a $250-million shortfall by 2018.

To make matters worse, if funding deals with Ottawa, like the Territorial Health Access Fund (THAF), are not renewed, that figure could balloon to $350 million.

When the Yukon Health Care Review was released last year, Premier Dennis Fentie described it as part of the government's business case to Ottawa to keep the the THAF tap flowing to the territory.

Following the report's release and at the completion of the legislature's spring sitting, Fentie pledged not to burden Yukoners with additional or increased health care fees.

"On the record, the government has clearly articulated that we have no intention of raising fees or taxes (for health care)," Fentie, who also serves as Finance minister, said last week.

"We've gone through an exercise here so Yukoners can see ...where their health system is at, and in a 10-year timeline, where it will be."

But New Democrat Party Leader Todd Hardy sees the review's recommendations – particularly the proposed user fees – as another step toward privatizing the territory's health care.

While Hardy is uncertain Fentie will keep his word on new and increased user fees, Liberal Leader Arthur Mitchell, who last November described the review as the first step toward a tax grab, said he doesn't believe the premier.

"There's been a lot of broken promises and I would suggest to Yukoners that they should think long and hard before believing Dennis Fentie on this one," Mitchell said last week.