Hit Alberta hard and fast

Ottawa should fire all cannons at any province that encourages private care

by Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

The volume of hysteria in the media over weaknesses in the public health system is, counter-intuitively, a sign of good health in that public system. As proportionately more people enter older age brackets, as their longevity increases, as their expectations of treatment and care heighten, and as technology promises more cures, it is inevitable that a national comprehensive public health care system would experience difficulties changing with these altered demographics and financial realities.

If there were a two-tier system allowing the wealthy to largely escape these difficulties, there would be little media interest in these inevitable problems. It is only because the better-off are compelled to use the public health system that they take such a keen interest in seeing that that system is maintained and improved. If the better-off are ever allowed to purchase alternative health care, far from relieving the public system of the burden of caring for them, they will abandon that system and allow it to further erode from lack of funds and attention.

It is only because it is the better-off who complain about the current system that the mass media feature that complaint so prominently and draw overwhelming political attention to it. This is the key reason why it is important for the Canadian government to ensure no provinces ever allow the emergence of a comprehensive private health care alternative. Any move by any province in this direction should be met with the most vehement denunciation and stringent penalties the federal government can mete out. The system is fine given the realities it struggles under. It will be destroyed if the well-off are ever allowed to circumvent it.

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