Death Notice Canadian Medical Care Is Terminal!

Here's an excerpt from a news piece from Brunswick Hospital that tells a sorry tale.

"If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."

The patient wasn't dead. He was advised it would be three months to get an electrocardiogram. That little mis- communication gem has been picked up news services around North America. The Canada Health Act not withstanding, Canada's medical care system, as currently constituted, is very dangerous to your health.

The Canadian medical care egalitarian myth is exposed. It's an illusion that makes Canadians feel good about a system that offers, but does not provide, timely universal medical care insurance coverage. Coverage that theoretically can be converted to service when is needed. One of the key principles of the Canada Health is : All insured residents are entitled to the SAME LEVEL of insured care. Our medical care system doesn't provide that.

From its inception Canadians have been deluded by government, that government supplied single payer medical care insurance is a bromide that reflects our compassionate nature.

"Ever since universal health insurance was first proposed by William Lyon Mackenzie King back in 1919, Canadians have been witness to an ongoing debate about how health services should be organized and funded. Over the course of some twenty-five years, starting with Saskatchewan in 1946,Canadians made a series of democratic and deliberate decisions that gave Canada its system of universal hospital and medical care --Medicare. The obstacles were formidable and at times seemed insurmountable, but we succeeded."

"Canadians have become accustomed to the notion of a perpetual health care "crisis". Health care systems are prone to emotional debates because they involve two things that we care a lot about: health and money --in fact, a great deal of money. Mix this with the mostly single-payer, publicly funded approach that Canada has adopted, and you have already-made recipe for an ongoing debate among governments, health providers and the general public. There is also something distinctively Canadian in all of this: Medicare is more than a health care system --it reflects a shared commitment to fairness and compassion."
Source: The Public and Private Financing of Canada's Health System, National Forum on Health, Sept. 1995.



Call it the 'culturalization' of medical care a feel good notion that is detrimental to your health. Since that report was published wait times have doubled from 9 weeks to 18 weeks for surgery, according the Fraser Institute. Does waiting exacerbate a medical condition? It doesn't help that's for sure. How fair and compassionate is that?

Canada and North Korea are the only two countries, in the world, that do not allow their citizens to insure themselves for hospitalization and medical surgery. Why? If the system can't deliver, which it can't, why does the government insist on maintaining its medical care monopoly. The government collects the fees, your taxes, to underwrite the insurance coverage. It licenses all the practitioners. It decides what procedures are insured, a so called 'list of eligible services. If you can't get the service, when you need it, what kind of access do you have? Further you can't take measures to insure that you pay for the service, even if you wanted to chose that option.

Self care, a preventative strategy, is also discouraged by keeping alternative products and therapies, outside the government medical insurance program. Self care is private health care in action. Despite what you may read and hear. Canadians are voting with the pocket books in ever increasing numbers that self care is an option they want and need. Canadians are taking independent action to be healthy, to stay off the waiting lists. The government should recognize the obvious benefit of reduced demand on the medical system, and reward those who have the knowledge and the ability to look after themselves. This does not jeopardize those who are unable to do so.

It would seem logical that governments would embrace that concept, they don't. They make it harder to get those products and services. Health Canada did just that in January 2004, when it re-classified all supplements minerals and vitamins as drugs, complete with an expensive, time consuming, process for licensing labeling. It also seeks to limit dosages to render these natural products just about useless. Why is the government making it difficult for us to take care of ourselves?

The argument against privatizing medical care service is bogus. It implies private delivery will divert resources from the public system.

All Canadians physicians are private contractors. They bill the medical care insurance program for a set of predetermined 'approved' services. All the laboratories that do the diagnostic testing 'prescribed' by physicians are private companies. The only thing public, about the relationships, is they both bill the government for the services they provide. The government is the single payer insurance company. You pay the bill through your taxes.

Medical care rationing is insidious. It has many forms. There is creeping downloading, called de-listing. Alberta, which is redesigning its medical care system, just did that. It de-listed physiotherapy reducing insured coverage by 66 % from 6 treatments to two. That's from a government that has an $8 billion surplus. In Ontario which has $4 billion deficit, if the government doesn't increase funding, up to 10,000 health care professionals will get pink slip notices, in the mail, economic death, which may or may, not be terminal! The best the current system can do is to ration. For some reason the Canada Health Act proponents seem to think that's ok!

Ironically, the current medical care system is providing a giant subsidy to wealthy Canadians. When they need special treatment, in a hurry, they can get it anywhere. That group with the ability to pay, receives the same service, at the same price, as those at the bottom of the scale with limited meager resources. Currently neither group has 'timely' universal access. Access when it is needed.

Despite what you hear and read, there is a growth in private delivered medical care in Canada. Quebec and British Columbia are leading the way. Any Canadian physician can opt out of the system and create a private practice, with in the purview of the Canada Health Act.

There is a solution to the current crisis. Take the system back to where it was intended to be a universal medical insurance program.

Codify the Hippocratic Oath.

Retain universal access. Universal so that all Canadians have access to insurance coverage, which entitles them to medical care, when they need it.

No resident in Canada will be refused medical care, when they need it.

Premiums are based on taxable income, starting at $50,000 for a family. As in any insurance program there are deductibles, at the discretion of the insured. Similar to auto insurance the insured chooses a deductible up front, and that effects the cost of the premium.

If the government can't deliver, then it pays to send the patient to where it can be done.

Invest in preventive care expand the list of insured service to include alternative therapies.

The premium is paid by taxes, not in addition to current taxes.

Allow Canadians to purchase either private insurance against hospitalization and surgery. This will create medical insurance competition.

Allow Canadians to create medical savings plans on the RRSP model. These plans would be funded with after tax funds. There would be no tax deduction. Earnings in the fund would be not taxed, when used for medical and alternative products and services.

Invest in prevention, by expanding the list of services eligible to include alternative therapies and products.

Open the system allow Canadians to use their medical insurance, either private or public, on alternative products therapies, at their discretion.

Turn over testing and diagnostic services to private contractors, who can operate those very expensive machines 24/7 , at less cost than is currently the case. Operate those machines around the clock, 'they' don't tell time.

As you get set to file your taxes this month, remember 40% of every tax dollar goes to medical care that more and more you can't get!

References
The Commonwealth Fund
Fraser institute