Privatized health care is on the march

Polls indicate Canadians are getting used to the idea of some kind of private involvement in their health system

Ottawa General Hospital is a good indication of the problems with Canada’s health system. According to the latest article by the Globe and Mail’s crack health reporter Andre Picard, emergency room occupancy there is at 105 per cent, and 400 surgeries have been cancelled since the start of the year because of staff shortages.

The Canadian Medical Association is attempting to address these issues with a new report that includes recommendations to implement a universal prescription drug plan, a charter that enshrines the rights of patients, and an independent body to monitor health spending, and cash incentives for hospitals to treat more patients.

The CMA isn’t saying it quite yet, but some observers believe that the only way to implement such sweeping changes is by introducing some kind of private system. That’s a welcome development for the National Post’s Tasha Kheiriddin. “Monopolies are inherently inefficient. They are over-bureaucratic, they lack incentives, and deny patient choice,” she writes. “Even socialist Sweden has private health care.”

There are growing signs that Canadians are beginning to warm up to the idea of private involvement in health care. “Evidently younger Canadians (those born after 1966) are not holding themselves hostage to the old idea that the current, government-run system is sacred and not to be tampered with,” says an Ottawa Citizen editorial, pointing to a CMA poll that says young Canadians would be willing to buy private insurance. There has “been little progress” on health care in this country because “talk of structural reform is attacked as ‘anti-Canadian,’” says the Citizen, but as their parents grow older and less healthy, “younger Canadians don't have the luxury of being nostalgic” for the days of Tommy Douglas.

If privatization does come to Canada, Danielle Smith of Alberta’s Wildrose Alliance will be leading the charge. She’s set up a website to collect Albertans’ “health care horror stories,” and will campaign in the next provincial election on a platform of privatization. She’s got less than an outside chance of winning, but it could be a sign of things to come.