EDITORIAL: Strong medicine for what ails health care
· Toronto Sun
It’s an article of faith for Canadians. We brag that, unlike in the U.S., no one in Canada goes broke if they get ill. We love our health-care system — until we must use it.
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Then it often fails patients in their time of need.
Increasingly, when we rely on our universal health-care system, it shows its cracks. Long wait times for surgery, hallway health care and a shortage of family physicians are just the tip of the iceberg. That’s not a criticism of frontline medical professionals. Far from it Every day, doctors, nurses and other professionals perform miracles under the most trying circumstances. They’re the unsung heroes of the system.
They’re not the problem. It’s the system that’s paralyzed by political inertia.
A report this week from the Fraser Institute points out that Canada’s health spending already ranks among the highest in the world, while access to care in this country ranks “among the lowest with among the fewest medical technologies per population (e.g. MRI and CT scanners).”
The report’s authors, Jake Fuss and Nadeem Esmail, say this country has some of the longest waitlists for access to care in the developed world.
“Instead of trying (and failing) to solve the problem with more spending, the provinces should understand how other countries get so much more without further (and rapidly) increasing spending,” they say.
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The world’s top-performing countries with universal health care — Australia, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany — all deliver timelier health care while spending the same or less than Canada.
They share some key differences in the delivery of health care. Notably, they all allow the private sector to deliver key elements in the system. Hospitals are paid per patient, and in each country, a significant percentage of hospitals are private-for-profit.
“This encourages hospitals to treat more patients and in a more timely fashion,” the report observed.
Canadian provinces give hospitals an annual budget to care for patients, a model that doesn’t provide any incentive to treat more patients faster. Those countries also allow user fees and deductibles, which are banned by the Canada Health Act.
These suggestions are strong medicine for Canada’s health system, yet only the bravest of politicians will propose the changes that are needed to fix the ailing patient.