If I'm not mistaken, a few months ago Tommy Douglas was voted The Greatest Canadian by an oh-so-scientific phone-in poll of CBC viewers. What a bizarre bit of irony, then, that the Supreme Court should rule aginst one of the principles of Tommy's baby, Medicare, Canada's #2 sacred cow (#1 being Tim Horton's cofee, of course...never mind that it's not Canadian it's Central American or whatever and absolute crap besides). private clinics are now allowed to operate in Quebec, and the Supreme Court has set a precedent that will basically force them to bring down the same ruling when similar cases inevitably crop up from other provinces.
Pessimists see this as the beginning of US-style two-tier health care, while optimists point to mixed systems like in the UK that have both private and public health care provisions. I'm not a big expert on the UK's system but I have heard it touted as a model that our own should follow. However, a commentator in Saturday's Globe and Mail pointed out that this is not the UK, this is Canada, and Canada has a little thing called NAFTA biting us in the ass. Apparently health care is only exempt from NAFTA regulations as long as Canada maintains its publicly-funded system, and once we allow private providers then we have absolutely no power to stop American private providers from coming in and taking advantage of our government's subsidies etc. Again, I'm no expert, but the possibility of our health-care system turning into the American model scares the shit out of me. Yes, the waiting lines and funding shortages are bad. Very bad. In-desperate-need-of-a-better-strategy-and-more-money bad. But skyrocketing costs and inefficiency, an insurance system that often leaves people in the dust just when they need it the most, and slews of people (and not just the poorest members of society, either) being forced to declare bankruptcy due to sudden serious illness...that's worse.
It all left me feeling very confused and sad so I went out and got a clothes-drying rack (we still don't have a clothesline, grrrrrrrrrrr) and a low-flow showerhead. Reducing fuel consumption and having nice-smelling clothes make sense to me.
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1 comment:
Great blog I hope we can work to build a better health care system as we are in a major crisis and health insurance is a major aspect to many.
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