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VICTORIA — B.C.’s finance minister is scrapping a planned four per cent hike to Medical Services Plan premiums, as the province starts to spend a larger-than-expected budget surplus, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

Mike de Jong said in an interview he’ll announce the change as part of a quarterly budget update in Victoria on Thursday.

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“You’ll see numbers and the surplus is up considerably,” he said, declining to reveal the exact figure until that briefing. “You’ll recall in the budget there was a scheduled further increase for MSP premiums for Jan. 1 of four per cent. That’s not going to happen. There will be no change.”

The move means a monthly MSP premium rate for an adult will remain at $75, instead of rising $3 to $78 on Jan. 1.

Those rates for those on premium assistance will drop an additional four per cent from what was planned, said de Jong.

The move will cost B.C. almost $100 million a year, which de Jong said is possible because of the healthy financial figures. “That’s one of the consequences of the improved fiscal situation,” he said.