 |
Time to face the truth about healthcare
By Bert Brown
 Post-Second World War Canada
adopted a plan for a national health-care system based on the principal of universal health care. Initial resistance overcome, citizens embraced a nationwide
dream of "free," as in the taxpayer pays for everything.
Times have changed; medical technology advanced as much and more than did automobiles, and so did the cost. In reaction to gigantic increases in health-care costs, governments were forced to dump billions of dollars annually into efforts to supply "free" health care for the mega-rich and the tragically poor.
The more conservative governments began to charge insignificant health-care premiums to those able to pay, while covering those who couldn't from the taxpayers' purse.
Still, the costs of health care rise by billions each year. Costs are driven by better but costlier technology and a population that lives longer than ever before -- its health-care costs will accelerate dramatically in the last six months of their lives.
Few want to see public health care fail, but it is already failing for those languishing six months to three years on waiting lists. Health care delayed is health care denied.
Canada has operating rooms severely under-utilized that could be used 24/7 with more qualified physicians. We have more than 4,000 immigrant doctors driving taxis and doing menial labour because they haven't been certified. Why?
A prominent Calgary businessman stated metaphorically more than two years ago that there is a tumour on our table; it is growing and it will ultimately push everything else off the table. Education, social services, infrastructure and research and development all will get less funding as health care demands more. Rising health care costs of seven to eight per cent a year are sustainable only at the cost of other programs.
The principle of universality was a noble one, but we have already abandoned it. We have to abandon the hypocrisy of labels such as "not for profit." Nobody works without profiting from their labour, save volunteers.
Canadians drafted a covenant to look after all those in need of health care. That is noble and worth preserving. But we can't sustain that covenant as a protective umbrella over the mega-rich and tragically poor forever.
We can't ignore the fact that those who can afford to get timely health care are going elsewhere -- India, Europe, the U.S., Mexico and even to other provinces where they can access care by paying privately. Nor can we blame them for not waiting to risk permanent damage, even death, standing in line.
We can provide ways for them to spend their health-care dollars in their own country and let that money enhance the national ability to hire more doctors and nurses, build more operating rooms and more clinics to handle specific chronic problems.
Those who buy medical care outside the national plan are charging the Alberta government for their expenses. The money recovered could be used to form a foundation dedicated to help others access needed health care outside the province. Such foundations could also accept tax-free donations to train more doctors and other health-care professionals.
A man from Quebec asked: "Why can't I buy the health care I need when I need it?"
He took that question to the Supreme Court of Canada. It agreed he should be able to.
A woman in Ontario who suffered a stroke asked: "Why can't I use my life savings to save my life?"
My wife and I have a third question to ask. Why, after 2 and a half years of waiting for an operation to stop debilitating pain, did we have to spend $13,000 outside Alberta to get medical help within a month? Why couldn't we have spent that money in the province where we have worked and paid taxes? Why was our money not allowed to help defray Albertans' costs?
It is past time for posturing. Sacred-trust arguments and promises to do innovative thinking are not enough. It is time for concrete proposals.
Bert Brown is Alberta's elected senator-in-waiting
»
Return to Health Frontiers
|
|
|
|
 |
 Health
Frontiers: Issue 6
|
