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”

From the outside, The Canadian Medical Association looks like a monarchy. It presides over the major ceremonies at provincial and territorial associations. But the CMA has grown tired and a bit embarrassed by old formalities.

After 152 years, the CMA has almost transformed into a New Thing.

Reform started some time ago with reorganization and throwing out robes and royal parades.

Committees followed.

Then motions. And board members.

The CMA almost succeeded in throwing out general council.

By every indication, the CMA wants to throw out the medical profession too.

Crisis at OMA Council

On May 5th at OMA spring council in Ottawa, Dr. Gigi Osler, CMA President, gave her annual address.

At first, no one came up to ask questions. Almost three hundred people sat in silence: a rare event in medical politics. Continue reading “The Secret of CMA Credibility & How to Win It Back”

We learn to fly by looking up, not down. Cheetahs cannot teach us about flight. Only birds can.

We can know everything about ground travel and remain clueless about flight.

If we want to defy gravity, we must study those who defy gravity. We must copy them; adopt their mannerisms; mirror their environment.

We cannot achieve prosperity by studying the destitute. We might learn what not to do, but that is not enough. Experts on poverty cannot teach prosperity.

Poverty as Disease

Medical doctors who study poverty examine it like a disease. Every disease has a cause. Find the cause; cure the disease.

Understanding disease process leads to treatment aimed at cure. This approach has produced tremendous success for medicine.

Health promoters still criticize doctors for emphasizing diagnosis and treatment. Patients can be disease-free but unhealthy. Doctors now promote health, too, but it required a change in focus.

Anti-poverty activists seem to think that expertise about poverty will fix poverty. They start in the wrong spot. They see poverty as an abnormal state arising from some noxious cause or disordered process.

Wealth, in a middle class sense, is common in North America. But it is not normal. Continue reading “Social Determinants of Wealth”