Quebec Ban On Private Healthcare 'Unconstitutional'

<p> This is truly a watershed. <blockquote> In sum, the prohibition on obtaining private health insurance is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services. </blockquote> The court basically said you can't make it illegal to buy a service from anyone but the government, but then not provide that service. <p> In fact, this ruling could <i>really</i> save medicare for a generation. If the will is there, and I think it is, then various governments will be forced to put money back into medicare to prevent it going to two-tier. <p> The NDP should step up on this, because the Liberals are already sounding pretty wishy-washy. </p><p>---<br>If you don't like these ideas, I've got others. --Marshall McLuhan

Or it could really save health care by allowing private insurance.

Just a thought.

I hope a positive comes out of this, but I am not as optimistic as I should be. Martin deliberately cut funding to our healthcare, which created the waiting lists, created the need, and as always where there is a need somebody will try to fill it. Especially when there are big bucks to be found. If money can buy you a faster treatement, then why does the government not provide the money, so all people can have faster treatment? Once again those who have will get, and those who don't will suffer!

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

I had to write:
Dear Prime Minister Martin
The latest news release in part says: 'Thursday, Jun 09, 2005

Supreme Court ruling opens door to private health: experts

OTTAWA (CP) - The country's top court has delivered a powerful blow to Canada's single-tier system of public health care, striking down a Quebec law that banned private insurance for medically necessary services.

The federal government insisted there's nothing to worry about, but most experts predicted the decision will lead to a parallel private system.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday that the Quebec ban on private insurance violates Quebec's charter of rights.'

This development is the result of massive cuts to healthcare over many years, which you are responsible for and which the Canadian people will suffer. We have heard many times that throwing money at the problem isn't the answer, and yet it is this fact which will change the system. Rich people will be able to throw money at their health concerns while the poor will continue to beg and suffer. How could you ever have allowed this to occur in a country as great as ours? This is a blatant errosion of a system designed for all people, it is without a doubt going to be a major contributor in forcing people into losing their homes, to pay for healthcare. To say now, that it will not happen, when you have set the pendulum in motion to do so, is disgusting!

Telling us it is nothing to worry about is insulting! Your Liberal Government has not protected the people of this nation, you have been able to speak the words but not put into action the very process which would prevent a private for profit system from entering into this country. Alberta and many other provinces are already seeing those results and it must stop. The result will be many large corporations, both insurance companies and private clinics making their living off of the ills of society. This is truly a sad day for Canadians, and I suspect, the Liberal government of Canada, will indeed be seen as those responsible for the destruction of healthcare in Canada, although clearly the Conservatives have been heading in that direction also. But alas, you and your collegues will be in the wage bracket to pay, and so this issue will not affect you or your children, like it will the millions of Canadians who struggle for healthcare even now.

I want you to address this issue now, before it goes any further. I want you to fully cooperate with all members of Parliament and find a solution to ensure that private for profit clinics, labs, insuracne companies and other related services in this area are removed, and no others allowed to enter the industry. I want you to work together as a minority government and fully fund the present system, and increase funding to a standard which removes waiting lists, and guarantees Canadians fair delivery of our healthcare. I am sending a copy to other members of government and I expect them to also work with you to fix, your mistake and I do not want to hear the blame game in the House, I want to hear solutions. You have been sent to Ottawa to represent the people, thus far all we hear about is corruption and blame on all sides of the House. It is time to stand up and do what you were sent to Ottawa to do, and that is 'govern' in the best interests of all Canadians.

If this should require you to sit all summer, then do so. As we all know you have wasted a great deal of our time and money this past year. You have not earned your wages in recent months, I ask you to start working for Canadians today.

I look forward to your response.

Catherine Whelan Costen
Canadian Action Party Candidate


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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

Not to let Martin off the hook but in actual fact this goes back long before Martin started his social program cuts to the previous Tory government that essentially ran up our national debt by not curbing the Bank of Canada governor's (John Crow) insane high interest (as i recall it was never less than about 12% during his tenure) policy to curb what at the time was about 4% inflation. I believe this was purposefully done by neocon idealogues as a measure to weaken the federal governments ability to fund social programs. This is not too far-fetched if you consider that the interest we have been paying on this debt since incurring it is about what is needed to properly fund all of our social programs and then some. You may also recall that it was the neocon types essentially creating a national panic over our deficit. I remember them claiming that Canada had hit the debt wall when in reality bond rating agencies outside Canada had no worries about Canada's fiscal position and in fact we never went below a AAA rating. The money we have lost to what these people did pales in comparison to anything concerning AdScam. I sure would like to see a commission formed to investigate this.

Yep! That`s it feds! Fan those flames of separatism. Then allow for profit health care, where if you can`t pay, you either lose your house or die! Nice bunch of losers there in Ottawa.

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Dave Ruston

I'd just like to put forth my comments on this topic. Then you can predictably tear apart what I have said.

On the issue of priavte health insurance Germany, Holland, and Switzerland all offer their citizens access to private health insurance.

In Germany people who are insured privately pay a premium based on the average health risk of the age group they are in at the moment they join. The premimum is never increased as a function of the insured's age. The incentive here is to join when you are young; if your health risk is low you need to pay less, but you capatialise over time. Since the premimum is calculated based on the average health risk of the age group it is affordable to everyone including high risk individuals.

Holland has catastrophic health insurance and routine health care. Catastrophic health insurance is financed by a single payer government fund with income taxes. Non-catastrophic health insurance can be covered by private insurance which never becomes too expensive as very costly chronic and acute medical risks are covered by the catastrophic insurance fund.

In Switzerland all health insurance is private. Premiums are not calculated based on income, but on a per head basis with weightings for age of entry into a fund, regional cost differences, and sex. The government gives subsidies to high risk patients to allow them to buy into private insurance. They have a risk adjustment system which forces all insurers in the market to pay a portion of the premimums they collect into a central fund which is used to compensate insurers for a larger portion of the less healthy high risk members. This fund basically compensates insurers for the higher financial risks involved in insuring their members.

These systems allow people to buy into private health insurance with out having to pay twice. And since their systems rely on capitalisation they have created an investment pool of domestic capital.

It's funny that there is so much opposition to two tier health care in this country! In fact I would say that some people's attitudes are melodramatic and ridiculous to say the least, while some people do offer a productive arguement against such a system. So many Canadians are unable to realise that there is a clear difference between a two tier system of health care that exists in countries such as France, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and countless other nations and an all private system of health care. Perhaps it's all the propaganda we've been fed over the years.

Look at the French. Their nation pays less than Canada on average when it comes to health care, and yet their systems out performs our own sacred universal system. In Germany you can be diagnosed and treated within a week. In Switzerland there are no waiting lines. This is in the heart of socially progressive Europe! It only goes to show the differences between Canadian socialism and European socialism. The NDP would rather die (vainly) than allow a two tier system to exist in this country.

The logic behind two tier health care is so simple that a child could understand it; those who 1) are willing to and 2) have the means to do so pay, while those can't afford health care don't have to pay. In a socially progressive and democratic country all citizens have a right to health care, but those who have the means to pay also have the right to do so if that is their wish. We're already seeing older Canadians leave the country to seek better options, why not provide that option for them here in Canada?

A two tier system is more flexible and would make the public system more efficient. Many critics of the two tier system complain that under such a system all the best doctors would go into private practice. Not so. In Australia all doctors are required to work for a period of time in the public system.

The Canada Health Care Act is a paraody of itself. The Act guarntees not only health care for all, but the BEST health care available for all. In case you haven't noticed we don't have access to the best health care. We're not even close. There are problems that would crop up under a two tier system just as there are problems with our sacred cow of a system, but that doesn't mean the idea shouldn't be explored. It certainly doesn't make us less Canadian for trying.



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"I pick the bones of what's been done. I'm the revolution when the door is shut. I bite the hand that slaps me senseless. I am far too Canadian" -SotW

Yes, and haven`t you noticed that our own treasonous government has purposely allowed the disintegration of our health care system when there`s no need for it? Essential services like health care, hydro, water, etc, should never be privatized, and never be based on ability to pay- especially in this wonderful era whereby so many people are losing their jobs and such. Last year in the US, 600,000 people went bankrupt because they couldn`t pay their medical bills. And given NAFTA, it won`t merely be a Euro style two tier system, it will be a barbaric, parasitic, system where the rich stay well, the middle class get the likes of Dr. Nick, and the poor die. The answer is not private investment- it is for Canadians to get off their complacent asses and DEMAND NOW that their goofy government do what we originally asked in the Romanow Report!!!

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Dave Ruston

There are problems with health care, but they aren't structural. Part of the problem is that we are already americanized to an extent. There have been studies that clearly show that those in poorer areas have worse medical facilities than richer areas. Likewise rural areas often have none. So we already know that doctors and resources go to the money'd class because it is already happening.
Like Canadian provinces most states have radically different health care provisions, part of the problem is simply canadians distrust of government. Theoritically it COULD work very well, as mentioned Australia forces doctors to work in the public sector a certain amount of time. The problem is 'the amount of time' and whether certain specialties can opt out. Because poor people have always gotten the shaft in our country the knowledge is pretty much set up that canadian will simply adopt the bad provisions of american health care with the typically canadian bureaucratic (*&^& ups that accompany them.

Also by saying that it is a right to be able to buy insurance to pay for healthcare is just asking for another party to be involved, to reap the more gravy from the system, which in the end will cost more for everyone. The question is almost unbelievable, why should a rich person have to wait, they by the very fact that they are rich means they are more important; that is apparently how we have come to look at the situation. The poor are poor because, they were stupid, lazy or otherwise unmotivated, didn't look after themselves and in fact deserve what they get; but the rich applied themselves, worked very hard to get what they have and need to be taken care of because they are the backbone of society whereas the poor, well gee they are just poor! This is the illness of society, greed and arrogance rules!

The idea that private companies should be able to make a profit off of the sick is totally against any human compassion. Survival of the fittest generation has evolved, we are lower than animals, because they aren't capable of thought or compassion, they are bred to think me first, we on the other hand are not, but we're getting there.

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

Duh! Of course it's unconstitutional to enforce suffering on people because of strange ideals. Lets move on from the socialist dark-ages and get more progressive in Canada.

Here, here!

I'm sorry but you're going to have to explain this one to me. How will it cost you more money if I buy private insurance for myself? You're going to have to explain that one to me.

What would you rather have? A rich person in line in front of you who can afford to go to a private clinic or take that person out of the system completely, send them to a private clinic and insure that they continue to put money back into the public system? From a socialist point of view, taxing the upper class makes more sense than waiting behind them in line.

It is not an unbelieveable question, it is a matter of rights. A person has the individual right to pay for health care if they want to. The challenge is to ensure that a person who is unable to afford health care doesn't have to pay. Socially progressive democracies elsewhere have succeeded, why can't we? Maybe Canada isn't as socially progressive as it likes to think it is?

A person can buy insurance for their pet, but they can't buy it for their child, that helps you to sleep better at night? That's sound logic for health care only if you live on Orwell's 'Animal Farm'.

It's not that the upper class is better than the middle or lower class(es). The wealthy would still pay for public health care under a two tier system. In fact it would be more than possible to tax private clinics which would mean more money for the public system.

You're caught up in warped socialist Canadian logic. Making money off of the sick is against human compasion. We'll you're right. So in Germany, when public hospitals turn a profit what should they do, feel guilty and burn the money? You're arguement makes no sense.

TELL ME, HOW IS A TERMINALLY ILL PERSON WHO IS WILLING TO PAY FOR HIS OWN CARE ANY BUSINESS OF YOURS? I'D LIKE TO KNOW.

Hearing the left-wing response(s) to this debate only proves (in my eyes at least) that Canadian socialism is the poor bastardised imitation of a sounder, more efficient European version.

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"I pick the bones of what's been done. I'm the revolution when the door is shut. I bite the hand that slaps me senseless. I am far too Canadian" -SotW

Quote:'How will it cost you more money if I buy private insurance for myself? You're going to have to explain that one to me.

What would you rather have? A rich person in line in front of you who can afford to go to a private clinic or take that person out of the system completely, send them to a private clinic and insure that they continue to put money back into the public system? From a socialist point of view, taxing the upper class makes more sense than waiting behind them in line.

It is not an unbelieveable question, it is a matter of rights. A person has the individual right to pay for health care if they want to. The challenge is to ensure that a person who is unable to afford health care doesn't have to pay'


First when you take them out of the line and they go to the private clinic, guess who goes with them? The doctors, the equipment, the techinicians, the buildings. Now you have doctors chosing to work in the sytem which pays more,has all the bells and whistles to do the job, better, faster etc and make more money. You statment about the challenge to ensure the person who can't pay still has affordable healthcare, will definitely be a challenge, because saying that they can have affordable healthcare will also mean, the minimum care. I keep refering back to dental, because I worked in that industry for about 8 years, and I know what happens when you can't pay. If we have two systems we will have two levels of care, one superior, one inferior. We have that in dental now, people who can pay, have a better quality, and after all they deserve it, right? As for rights I see this as more propaganda about individual rights, when it is the rights of the corporations we are really talking about, and it is their rights to make a profit which will ultimately impact Canadian people, our rights to affordable healthcare are secondary. I fail to see anyone really concerned about the public's right not to suffer, or afford healthcare, the drug companies don't care if we suffer they have the cure, the cost of drugs rises steadily and as soon as private healthcare is common, the cost of surgery, will also rise dramatically. Our government will not be able to stop it. That is their job, to govern, to create sustainable and viable programs for all, not just an exclusive element of society.

If you have one system, which is properly funded, nobody waits in line, nobody gets better treatment because it is all good. If not, the rich person would be screaming and the politician would make sure that it was changed. With two systems the rich will go to the private system and when the public system is underfunded, the poor will not speak, because they know they will not be heard. They are not heard right now.

How will it cost more, very simple. You add a third party to the equation, you have more people on the payroll, they must be paid. NAFTA has already made it clear that the government cannot offer any service which would take profits away from a corporation. So public funded healthcare would have to charge the same as private healthcare, which means public healthcare would cost more.

Insurance companies will offer premiums for private hospitals and treatment, then the person paying for private services will opt out of public funded healthcare, it is already an option in Alberta, so if the rich opt out of paying into public healthcare, the people left to pay will have to pay more, or the government will subsidize more, which is the public purse. So it will cost me more.

Quote: 'TELL ME, HOW IS A TERMINALLY ILL PERSON WHO IS WILLING TO PAY FOR HIS OWN CARE ANY BUSINESS OF YOURS? I'D LIKE TO KNOW.'

I think it is my business because the terminally ill person who can't pay, won't have that same option, I as a caring member of society will feel compelled to help that person, to find a way to fund that person's healthcare(that is why public non-profit was created in the first place). He is paying for his own care at the expense of publicly funded programs, which won't get the same level of funding, because funding often follows the doctors who are performing the most difficult and newest procedures, with the best equipment, which can be bought with the rich man's dollar. So the decision of as you say the terminally ill person, will in the end effect many more terminally ill people. One person's decision does affect the rest of us, whether we like it or not, obviously it won't be one person, it will be the rich. They will resent paying for healthcare for the poor, and I can forsee them lobbying the government to reduce their taxes more because they will opt out of the public healthcare system; we all pay in the end. What will we do when we have hundreds of children dying of cancer, but the public system doesn't have the equipment or doctors to care for them? Well we'll fund raise, we'll be watching telethons and phoning in our donation on our credit cards, we'll be running races and sponsoring a child, or adopting an orphan; what a wonderful world!? It doens't have to be that way.

The old saying follow the money is true in this case. Who was behind the lawsuit? Who was in the courtroom? Who stands to gain? Why was the system allowed to be underfunded for so long, by both Conservative and Liberal governments? People are shortsighted, many think they are rich enough to pay for their own healthcare, but the reality is there are not that many who are that rich, and as other programs and globalization continues there will be even less. We are cutting our own throats fighting for something which in the end few of us will be able to afford. The system wasn't broken, it was deliberately destroyed, to open the door for the corporate greed, knowing that the rich would never tolerate having to wait for something, they can afford to buy and piss on the rest! Isn't that the point of having all that money, not having to put up with inferior systems created for and by the average or lower class, after all they earned it right?

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

"The system wasn't broken, it was deliberately destroyed..."

If this is indeed true, it must be loudly and publicly proven. I have fuzzy recollection of demographers pointing out the obvious back in the 70's and 80's, and the governments of the time pretty much ignoring it.

The court ruling is a slippery slope, and one that cannot be easily undone, so let's be practical. If the people concerned about our health care system take an intransigent approach to considering all the opportunities created by this ruling, then things will take the "easy way" as the opposition makes itself practically useless ("should have" arguments go nowhere).

The "easy way" means no Canadian system as it was, and no Canadian system as it might be: the U.S. companies are ready to move in and "harmonize", and so without an open-minded body politic it means we'll begin to approach *that* system.

The "right" must also concede this fact: as long as private health care corporations, Canadian or American, have to do something different on either side of the border which costs them enough to warrant paying lobbyists, no "european" approaches to public-private balance will be good enough either.

Give Quebec this: it is the only province that, right now, has the cultural guts to build on this ruling without it resulting in a complete takeover by foreign business. Imagine if the case was tried in Alberta or Ontario!