The Sky Is Falling Again…

The Sky Is Falling Again…

Depending on how you listen to the neverending discussion, debate, and rhetoric around this country’s crumbling and mismanaged health care system, you could suffer from a sever case of whiplash.
Don’t fool yourself in to thinking that the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada has much affect on our health care system in the short, near, or long term. The ruling said, ‘Government bans on private health insurance have increased the risk to the life and health of Canadians, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday,’ while agreeing that prohibiting private health insurance jeopardizes the well-being of people who desperately need treatment. They also found that a prohibition on Quebec residents getting private insurance for services covered by Medicare ran afoul of that province's own Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.
If the courts really wanted to force a change, they should have ordered the politicians and doctors to be removed from the role they play in setting the plans for where and when health care will be delivered, and to have no say in what kinds of health care are funded more today, and less tomorrow.
Ordering the end to the ‘Squeaky Wheel Planning For Canada’s Health Care system’ would have helped too.
What strikes me is the strange picture emerging with this decision by the usually, ‘ activist judiciary.’ On the right wing, we find the same people who have railed against the activism of the bench, notably the Nine Red Robed honourable members of the Supreme Court of Canada, when their ruling goes against the tidy little world people like Stockwell Day, Stephen Harper, Ted Byfield, Ralph Klein, Barry Cooper, Tom Flanagan, Rainer Knopff, and recently elected MLA, Ted Morton live and think in.
Examples can be found all over the map, but most will focus on the recent rulings of Provincial and Federal courts that has set the path our Federal Government is trying to follow in the same sex marriage legislation before the House of Commons.
The basic reason the not withstanding clause will not be used is this instance is that health care is a provincial responsibility with the Federal government having no jurisdiction. The court decision having reverberations across the country as it alludes to the fact somewhere between the lines of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we have a right to free and extensive health care, only because the media will allow it to go unchallenged, and it looks good in the sound bites for the talking heads.
Klein’s, Third Way is not written by the devil, and makes good sense.
Klein is dead right when he says that Canadians are tired of: the debate that has become bogged down, with governments on one side and the sky is falling group on the other side.
What is wrong with taking the best of what we have in Alberta and Canada today and combine it with the best approaches we can find anywhere in the world, whether it's Sweden, or France, or England or Australia?
Yes we need to do this in conjunction with Alberta and the rest of Canada, adopting a patients bill of rights that will ensure all Canadians receive the health care service, along with effective enforcement and penalties, they need to stay healthy and contribute to Canada’s society in a positive way.
The basic problem with Canada’s health care system is that it has been built on a make shift basis, based on the squeaky wheel. If you make some noise the governments throw money your way to make you go away.
Whether the money being spent on that current medical malady of the day is going to help with the long-term health of the system is not looked at.
Whether the money thrown at special studies, round tables, MLA listening tours, or union reports, is having the desired affect or whether the outcomes are measured, is yet to be proven.
Canada spent approximately $100 billion on health care in 2004, according to Health Care in Canada, a report released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information on June 8, 2005. Of that, just under $70 billion was spent by governments delivering public health care. A little over $30 billion was spent on private health care.
With the money given to the Provinces under the recently agreed to, ‘ Premiers Dogs Breakfast, to Help Paul Martin get re-elected, ‘ we saw the principles of Canada’s basis for being, sold down the river.
The original purpose of the Canada Health Act was to put strings to the federal money given to the provinces for health care so a Canadian could expect the same kind of health care no matter where they lived.
To make that deal, the Prime Minister cut the strings.
The $41-billion federal-provincial health-care deal was not designed to address those concerns.
It was the invention on the fly of the, ‘ Paul Martin Desperate Re-Election Bid Asymmetrical Federalism.’
Asymmetrical federalism means each province will be able to make up their own set of rules to live by, and it will bare no reality to the province to its west, or to its east.
The Paul Martin Desperate Re-Election Bid Asymmetrical Federalism should be a bigger concern. The reality of a Canada with a pizza parliament for the foreseeable future means the Paul Martin Desperate Re-Election Bid Asymmetrical Federalism will be the norm.
Dr. Albert Schumacher, president of the Canadian Medical Association estimates that 75 per cent of health-care services are delivered privately, but funded publicly.
That does not mean the big mean old for profit companies are pocketing most of that money. It’s the doctor you go to see, is a private businessperson. It’s the private company providing the food you eat at the hospital, and always have eaten there. It’s a private company provides all the band-aids, drugs, equipment, and oxygen tanks.
Should we have no privately run hospitals in the country?
Most of the current hospitals still standing in Calgary and those that were blown up, were built with a combination of public and private funding. In fact some of them were built with no public money.
That means shutting down the Kensington Abortion Clinic. It is run by a corporation, and funded by the Health Region.
That means shutting down the Shouldice Hospital in Toronto opened in 1945, repairing hernias with a demand for its services beyond Canada’s borders?
If we follow the Canadian Health Care Coalition and Friends of Medicare’s thinking we will have to bring all of the doctors, facilities, and infrastructure under the ownership of the Province of Alberta and wait to see if this will build a more efficient bureaucracy.
Remember those scary words, ‘ I am with the government and I am here to help you.’
We need a ten, twenty and thirty year plan for health care with benchmarks, indicators and timelines for where the money will be spent, where the health care services will be needed based on sound demographic and medical science research and planning.