Category: Politics

Politicians have chased the medicare merry-go-round for decades. Each party pours on money or passes new legislation.

In 2004, Prime Minster Paul Martin’s Liberal government aimed to fix wait times. So it threw $41.3 billion dollars into a Health Accord.

The Harper Conservatives kept Martin’s Accord. But Harper slowed increases in transfer payments to 3%, after the Accord ran out.

While in opposition, Justin Trudeau railed against Harper’s handling of medicare. But after the election, PM Trudeau’s Liberals decided that Harper’s 3% was wise after all.

For all the bluster, political parties act the same. They either maintain the speed of the merry-go-round, or they give it a push and make it spin faster.

Private Practice, Public Payment

Canadians love free health care and hate the idea of bureaucrats controlling the care we receive. Canadians believe that doctors should provide whatever care we need (private delivery), and the government should pay for it (public payment).

Medicare calls it public payment and private delivery. Patients get free care, and doctors get to provide care based on science, not politics. Doctors and hospitals are privately owned businesses.

Dr. C. David Naylor, historian and health expert, captured the relationship in his book, “Private Practice, Public Payment” (1986). The message was clear: Canada is not socialist. We simply have state insurance, with private delivery, of medically necessary care. The government promises to pay and not meddle.

The trouble is that no one sees it that way anymore. All political parties believe that if the public pays, then it should drive. Government pays, so government should be in control. Continue reading “Are We All Socialist When It Comes to Medicare?”

Last fall, Jim Carey, the well-known comedian, spoke on Real Time with Bill Maher about Canadian single payer medical care:

“I grew up in Canada, OK? We have socialized medicine.

I’m here to tell you this bulls**t line you get on all the political shows from people is that it’s a failure. ‘The system is a failure in Canada.’

It is not a failure in Canada.”

Carey used an old term for the mascot of Canadian exceptionalism. Twenty years ago, socialism was dead. People avoided calling anything socialized, especially Canada’s crown jewel of post-war welfarism.

Even today, people still prefer to talk about single-payer healthcare. It ranks between 5- and 25-times more common than socialized medicine on Google trends since 2004.

Celebrities love to defend socialized medicine. That should not surprise us. But their comfort with the term ‘socialized’ is worth noting. As the New Yorker published this spring, socialism is back.

A Glorious Beginning

Socialized medicine started in the late 1960s with a promise: care regardless of ability to pay. Doctors and nurses could keep doing what they had always done. And government would pay. Who could argue with that?

The glory days of socialized medicine ended soon. Continue reading “Socialized Medicine: What’s in a name?”

I wrote this article for The Epoch Times and wanted to share it with you. Enjoy!

With a health care system in desperate need of innovation, every election candidate competes to avoid saying anything new.

Overall, 37% of Canadian voters rank health care as their top issue going into the election. But only 5.8% of voters say that health care will change their vote. That number would increase if candidates actually said something unique about health care.

But no one does.They all wrap themselves in the flag of medicare and pledge allegiance to our national icon.

Since health care won’t win more votes, it ends up as a the most important non-issue in every election. Voters learn nothing new and hear more of the same or nothing at all.

Health care is Canada’s third rail in politics: “If you touch it, you get electrocuted”.  Candidates have everything to lose, when addressing health care. Their only gain lies in promising more of what got us here in the first place. Continue reading “Health Care: The biggest non-issue this election”