Honourable Madam Justice Marie Deschamps' Privates
Ok, so I agree with her in principle: the Canadian government has been promising to do something about hospital waiting lists and overflow for too long and getting nothing done for even longer. I find it unlikely, however, that she and I would be in agreement as to the proper method with which to correct this fact.
She and her colleagues (the six other Supreme Court Justices) lifted (granted that it WAS a 4 - 3 split) the ban on Canadian citizens buying private health insurance for procedures covered by medicare. In and of itself, this is nothing terrible. It is, however, one of the worst things to ever happen to the Canadian health care system since the Chradministrations '92 cuts when taken in context.
Quebec (and this is one of those points seperatists love to hammer on, but that's another discussion for another day) has a rightly earned reputation for entrepreneurialism above and beyond most other places on earth (and Quebec is where the Supreme Court's decision applies). Again, left to itself, this fact means absolutely squat, but the fact is that with this ban now lifted our entrepreneurs are very likely going to start opening private clinics left and right. Our neighbours to the south, those wonderfully capitalist yanks, are also very likely eyeing the new market hungrily.
The effect the new clinics and hospitals will have on the public system will be devastating. Doctors are notoriously capitalist, and when the opportunity to make more money AND remain in the country rears its head, they will flock to the new opportunities by the hundreds. If medicare wants to keep them, their salaries will HAVE to go up. Once that happens it's "Hello Arms Race!" Health Care spending with gradually become more and more about paying doctors and less about keeping hospitals running, private sector prices will rise as long as we're willing to pay them and the public system will founder under the insurmountable salarial mass.
Don't flaunt succesful european Public / Private mixed systems in my face and tell me "See! It can work!" This is Canada. Canada's proximity to the USA and its own inherent cultural and legislative differences are fundamental barriers to a succesful mixed system.
Medicare's current state is not a product of the "socialist trap" or some other nonsensical Harper-borne propaganda. It is a product of the '92 ChrAdministration and their radical budgets (which were heralded as "well-balanced" and all-around good, much to the socialist minority's chagrin). It is a product of government trying to squeeze every last penny out of taxpayers without having to spend a single one. The cuts to health care effected by Paul Martin (then Minister of Finance) in 1992 have YET to be fully undone. The pre-cut system, while far from perfect before the cuts, was a far better one than the giant waiting list we have now. They wonder why it's gone to hell? Those cuts forced beds and hospitals to close, they sent doctors south in search of better working conditions and made drug and organ and blood shortages commonplace.
It all lead to where we are now, a moral crossroads which pits a fundamentally good system against two wrongs. It is wrong - disturbingly, disgustingly wrong - to ask people to prolong their suffering, or even DIE, because there aren't enough doctors or beds or organs or what have you. It is wrong to have them wait so long as to feel their health, life, security and happiness threatened by their illness.
It is also wrong to ask them to incur outrageous costs (either increasing premiums or the procedures themselves) out of pocket over something they have neither chosen nor controlled. It is fundamentally wrong to help someone medically and then send them a BILL.
The Supreme Court's decision that the latter was a lesser wrong than the former was indeed their decision to make, however, much more could have been done for the system in the long run if they'd demanded, for example, that the government immediately restore the pre-1992 spending levels plus twenty percent to cover inflation and the re-opening of hospitals and beds. Maybe its unrealistic, but a similar, more implementable decision could have saved the system, saved lives, and prevented the demise of the single greatest socialist beacon in all of North America.
On a completely unrelated note: this is the second post of the day, the previous one also has some political import and it would behoove anyone interested in Quebec politics to take a gander at it.
She and her colleagues (the six other Supreme Court Justices) lifted (granted that it WAS a 4 - 3 split) the ban on Canadian citizens buying private health insurance for procedures covered by medicare. In and of itself, this is nothing terrible. It is, however, one of the worst things to ever happen to the Canadian health care system since the Chradministrations '92 cuts when taken in context.
Quebec (and this is one of those points seperatists love to hammer on, but that's another discussion for another day) has a rightly earned reputation for entrepreneurialism above and beyond most other places on earth (and Quebec is where the Supreme Court's decision applies). Again, left to itself, this fact means absolutely squat, but the fact is that with this ban now lifted our entrepreneurs are very likely going to start opening private clinics left and right. Our neighbours to the south, those wonderfully capitalist yanks, are also very likely eyeing the new market hungrily.
The effect the new clinics and hospitals will have on the public system will be devastating. Doctors are notoriously capitalist, and when the opportunity to make more money AND remain in the country rears its head, they will flock to the new opportunities by the hundreds. If medicare wants to keep them, their salaries will HAVE to go up. Once that happens it's "Hello Arms Race!" Health Care spending with gradually become more and more about paying doctors and less about keeping hospitals running, private sector prices will rise as long as we're willing to pay them and the public system will founder under the insurmountable salarial mass.
Don't flaunt succesful european Public / Private mixed systems in my face and tell me "See! It can work!" This is Canada. Canada's proximity to the USA and its own inherent cultural and legislative differences are fundamental barriers to a succesful mixed system.
Medicare's current state is not a product of the "socialist trap" or some other nonsensical Harper-borne propaganda. It is a product of the '92 ChrAdministration and their radical budgets (which were heralded as "well-balanced" and all-around good, much to the socialist minority's chagrin). It is a product of government trying to squeeze every last penny out of taxpayers without having to spend a single one. The cuts to health care effected by Paul Martin (then Minister of Finance) in 1992 have YET to be fully undone. The pre-cut system, while far from perfect before the cuts, was a far better one than the giant waiting list we have now. They wonder why it's gone to hell? Those cuts forced beds and hospitals to close, they sent doctors south in search of better working conditions and made drug and organ and blood shortages commonplace.
It all lead to where we are now, a moral crossroads which pits a fundamentally good system against two wrongs. It is wrong - disturbingly, disgustingly wrong - to ask people to prolong their suffering, or even DIE, because there aren't enough doctors or beds or organs or what have you. It is wrong to have them wait so long as to feel their health, life, security and happiness threatened by their illness.
It is also wrong to ask them to incur outrageous costs (either increasing premiums or the procedures themselves) out of pocket over something they have neither chosen nor controlled. It is fundamentally wrong to help someone medically and then send them a BILL.
The Supreme Court's decision that the latter was a lesser wrong than the former was indeed their decision to make, however, much more could have been done for the system in the long run if they'd demanded, for example, that the government immediately restore the pre-1992 spending levels plus twenty percent to cover inflation and the re-opening of hospitals and beds. Maybe its unrealistic, but a similar, more implementable decision could have saved the system, saved lives, and prevented the demise of the single greatest socialist beacon in all of North America.
On a completely unrelated note: this is the second post of the day, the previous one also has some political import and it would behoove anyone interested in Quebec politics to take a gander at it.