Why we need two tier Medicare
For a long time I had no firm views about Medicare. I heard all the ideological propaganda from the Liberals about how wonderful our government monopoly medicare was, and since I hadn't had to use it, I thought it might be true.
Three years ago my daughter Kathryn, who lives in Nova Scotia, had a serious operation to remove a cyst which was growing at the base of her skull, in the centre of her neck. It was a rare condition and the operation was the first of its kind in Nova Scotia. All seemed well for a while, but then the cyst came back. Now it is pressing on her carotid artery, slowly pinching it off. Her blood pressure has fallen to 90 over 54, she gets dizzy and weak, and something has to be done. Her surgeon wants to use a less invasive technique using special imaging equipment to drain the cyst to relieve the pressure. It should be a day patient procedure.
Here's how the government monopoly medicare system dealt with it. She had to wait from July to get to her scheduled operation date of December 19, with her condition getting worse every day. Then, on the 10th of December, she was notified that her operation was arbitrarily cancelled by a bureaucrat who decided that the operating rooms in the hospital would be closed at 3:00 PM during Christmas week. No new date was set. Her condition continues to get worse as the cyst presses more and more on her carotid artery.
They tell me that because there is a large backlog of orthopedic procedures in Nova Scotia, that the operating rooms will be allocated mainly to those operations in January. People with other problems can just wait. Administration rules.
It seems to me that once you turn over control to a government monopoly, arbitrary bureaucratic action without accountability becomes the norm. Polls have shown that Canadians hold politicians in the lowest regard of any professional group, and they are trusted the least. Does it make sense that you turn over all your health dollars to politicians and trust them with your health and your very life?
What is needed is an alternative to this dysfunctional and unsatisfactory government monopoly system. A parallel private system would remove those who use it from the public waiting lines. In addition, the money paid into the private system would create additional facilities which would benefit everyone.
We already have a parallel private system, as everyone knows. It exists in several provinces to some extent, but in the main, our parallel private system is in the United States. Those who need it, and can afford it, go there for medical treatment that they can't get from the government monopoly system.
Does it make sense that those Canadian dollars are spent in the American medical system? Wouldn't it make more sense for those dollars to be spent in Canada in a parallel private system here?
The reason we don't have a private system to complement government monopoly medicare is purely political and ideological. The Liberals want to control medicare completely. So do the NDP. They are quite ready to let Canadians die for lack of treatment, on the altar of their ideology.
It is long past time that Canadians started thinking rationally about our medicare system. The scare tactics of the Liberals, who scream "American style medicare" and "two tier system" as if they were bad things, should be rejected and replaced with a clear eyed consideration of the merits of a parallel private system.
For me at least, the decision is easy. We should have a Canadian private system complementing the government monopoly system, keep our medical dollars inside Canada, and demand that both systems are run for the benefit of patients, not the administrative convenience of the bureaucrats.
For your own sake don't vote Liberal in this election. It might be the death of you.
Three years ago my daughter Kathryn, who lives in Nova Scotia, had a serious operation to remove a cyst which was growing at the base of her skull, in the centre of her neck. It was a rare condition and the operation was the first of its kind in Nova Scotia. All seemed well for a while, but then the cyst came back. Now it is pressing on her carotid artery, slowly pinching it off. Her blood pressure has fallen to 90 over 54, she gets dizzy and weak, and something has to be done. Her surgeon wants to use a less invasive technique using special imaging equipment to drain the cyst to relieve the pressure. It should be a day patient procedure.
Here's how the government monopoly medicare system dealt with it. She had to wait from July to get to her scheduled operation date of December 19, with her condition getting worse every day. Then, on the 10th of December, she was notified that her operation was arbitrarily cancelled by a bureaucrat who decided that the operating rooms in the hospital would be closed at 3:00 PM during Christmas week. No new date was set. Her condition continues to get worse as the cyst presses more and more on her carotid artery.
They tell me that because there is a large backlog of orthopedic procedures in Nova Scotia, that the operating rooms will be allocated mainly to those operations in January. People with other problems can just wait. Administration rules.
It seems to me that once you turn over control to a government monopoly, arbitrary bureaucratic action without accountability becomes the norm. Polls have shown that Canadians hold politicians in the lowest regard of any professional group, and they are trusted the least. Does it make sense that you turn over all your health dollars to politicians and trust them with your health and your very life?
What is needed is an alternative to this dysfunctional and unsatisfactory government monopoly system. A parallel private system would remove those who use it from the public waiting lines. In addition, the money paid into the private system would create additional facilities which would benefit everyone.
We already have a parallel private system, as everyone knows. It exists in several provinces to some extent, but in the main, our parallel private system is in the United States. Those who need it, and can afford it, go there for medical treatment that they can't get from the government monopoly system.
Does it make sense that those Canadian dollars are spent in the American medical system? Wouldn't it make more sense for those dollars to be spent in Canada in a parallel private system here?
The reason we don't have a private system to complement government monopoly medicare is purely political and ideological. The Liberals want to control medicare completely. So do the NDP. They are quite ready to let Canadians die for lack of treatment, on the altar of their ideology.
It is long past time that Canadians started thinking rationally about our medicare system. The scare tactics of the Liberals, who scream "American style medicare" and "two tier system" as if they were bad things, should be rejected and replaced with a clear eyed consideration of the merits of a parallel private system.
For me at least, the decision is easy. We should have a Canadian private system complementing the government monopoly system, keep our medical dollars inside Canada, and demand that both systems are run for the benefit of patients, not the administrative convenience of the bureaucrats.
For your own sake don't vote Liberal in this election. It might be the death of you.
posted by Brian Purdy, Calgary at 10:36 p.m.
1 Comments:
If Canadians are going to the States, they are less sophisticated than I thought. India has a wonderful parallel private health care system with just about all the doctors having been trained in England and speaking good English. Even with airfare one saves money.
Sorry to hear about Kathryn's plight. The first heart surgery I had in England, I never officially got a 'surgical date' and had to be admitted as an emergency because I'd already gone into kidney and liver failure. The NHS surgeon cheerfully told me that I was first on the schedule the following morning because they didn't think I'd live long enough to be second.
I now vow NEVER to be without private medical insurance again.
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