John Robson: It’s Time to Revisit the Canada Health Act and Reform Health Care

Commentary

It was the best of takes on Canadian socialized medicine, it was the worst of takes. From Matt Gurney at The Line, “none of us is morally obligated to let our families suffer in pain to satisfy the ghost of Tommy Douglas.” And from CTV, “More private health care linked to higher mortality, Quebec study warns.” As so often in Canada, we are told intellectual paralysis is patriotism. Let us instead summon the ghost of common sense.

When “Experts are concerned” you just know it will be the usual suspects, like some progressive think tank, and not labelled at all, let alone “left-leaning,” “left-wing,” or, heaven forfend, “far left.” Whereas The Line piece, after acknowledging the dedicated excellence of much Canadian urgent care, tells a tale of two patients their editors knew with simultaneous medical emergencies: one getting statist treatment here and one receiving private care in a “developing country.”

So you know what happened, unless you are a Canadian journalist, politician, or jingo. But I repeat myself.

Right. The private care “was markedly superior” and “Thanks to private insurance, the cost to our friend’s family was less than we’ve spent on fancy dinners out.” Whereas the CTV story warns that, based on 25 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development nations, “countries that allow greater private sector involvement in healthcare achieve poorer results on seven mortality indicators.” Then it propagandizes that “Canada has a mixed model.”

Bosh. We have a stunningly restrictive system, our ban on private health insurance for treatments nominally available publicly apparently unmatched outside North Korea. And while Canadian debate is obstructed by hollering about the evil American system as if the world faced only two choices and all sane decent people anywhere preferred ours, nobody ever adopted it, or the almost equally flawed British one we imitated. And a major reason why is ghastly waiting lists.

CTV semi-admits they exist. But evidently they’re not a problem, or at least not one we should even think of fixing. Instead, “To reduce surgery waiting lists, the [Quebec provincial] government has decided to shift towards the private sector. This situation could cause long-term problems, according to the experts consulted.”

Could. And as usual, “the experts consulted” are carefully-selected rigor-mentis partisans of the status quo. Including one professor who “acknowledges that surgery waiting lists are long, which is why the government wants to turn to the private sector. However, he points out that private clinics that perform surgery are starting to resemble private hospitals and private health-care providers.”

Boo private hospitals and providers. Never mind why. Elbows up! Brains down! Eventually, we get a study suggestion that mixing public funding with private service means “mortality indicators are generally worse.” But many European countries rely on mandatory private insurance. Why can’t we at least consider it?

Well, the story says casually, “To stem the exodus of doctors to the private sector … Health Minister Christian Dubé passed Bill 83 last spring, which, among other things, requires all doctors to obtain authorization from Santé Québec if they wish to leave the public system to practise in the private sector.” What? Are they serfs? Is Canada not a free country? And does freedom not work? Perish the thought.

Speaking of the departed, along with Saint Tommy Douglas, I also summon the shades of Monique Bégin and Pierre Trudeau, health minister and prime minister when the Canada Health Act was passed into law in the dying days of a Trudeau ministry 41 years ago. In 1980, his party won 74 of 75 Quebec seats but only 73 of 207 elsewhere and none west of Manitoba, against feeble opposition, and by 1984 were political poison in Quebec.

So they had no political mandate left, let alone a theological one. And note my saying “passed into law.” Because Conservative as well as Liberal politicians talk as if the CHA were carved on stone tablets by the fiery finger of God Himself.

No. It’s just a statute, albeit passed unanimously in what passes for debate here. And based on suspicious, outdated, inarticulate economics, it has consistently produced wildly disappointing and tragic results, ranking us high in per-capita spending but way down in advanced-country results. Normally, such a thing would be open to reconsideration. But this is Canada.

So we treat brain block as sacred, and pander also, The Line added, to “those who continue to think that health care in Canada matters more as a symbol of national identity than as a system to treat illness and injury.” Who, we are also not meant to mention, are overwhelmingly well-connected, often wealthy people who routinely jump the queue when ill. That’s not a cabinet minister next to granny on an ER hallway stretcher.

It is not disloyal, even in Canada, to rethink policy blunders. Let’s guillotine the Canada Health Act.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.