Private payment: the zombie of health care
By GORDON GUYATT
Globe and Mail Update April 6th, 2004
A number of commentators have issued vigorous calls for a debate on private payment for health care, and the two-tier system that private payment brings. They paint a picture of a cowardly conspiracy of silence in the face of an unsustainable system. However, Canadians have been debating public versus private payment since 1919, when Liberal leader William Lyon Mackenzie King included a form of medicare in his election platform. Five times in Canada's history, the federal government has asked high-profile political or judicial leaders to debate and resolve the health-funding controversy.
The Hall commission that lead to publicly funded physician and hospital services first considered the relative merits of public versus private health-care funding. Justice Emmett Hall conducted a second review, the results of which led to the Canada Health Act of 1984. In 1997, the National Health Forum toured the country, getting input from leading experts. Both Michael Kirby's Senate committee and the Romanow commission made their recommendations at the end of 2002.
The five reviews all came to the same conclusion: Public funding of health care is more equitable and more efficient. A parallel private system will not only introduce inequities in access to care, but will waste our resources and reduce our international competitiveness.
Full article:
A historical perspective on the private health care debate
Stumble It!
---
If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
You can download the slideshow at:
http://www.pnhp.org/slideshow/pnhp2003/ ... er2003.ppt
or go to www.pnhp.org for more info on U.S. doctors organizing to institute "Canadian-style" health care delivery for the United States.
-Randy from RI
Also, quite frankly I resent my tax dollars being used to fund somebody's private enterprise instead of building public infrastructure.
Of course, the other big argument these private interests make is that we already have private delivery of health services by family physicians, which is true. However, this is actually a perfect case against private delivery, as it has resulted in a medical system that promotes the management of chronic disease by prescribing pills thereby creating repeat customers for family physicians and specialists they eventually end up seeing because the cause of their conditions was not addressed in the first place. I believe this is one of the major causes of rising healthcare spending, although from the article it is not as substantial as private interests always seem to make out.
As the article states, private funding of healthcare should be a dead issue by now and along with this so should private delivery of healthcare.
---
Dave Ruston