Big things happen every few decades. We landed on the moon in 1969. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Ford government tabled Bill 74 in 2019.

At least that is how everyone talks about Premier Ford’s new bill. Former Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Bob Bell, said that The People’s Health Care Act is the biggest change to healthcare in 50 years.

Minister of Health, Christine Elliott, announced Bill 74 on Tuesday. It had already been leaked, condemned, defended and modified. So it did not spark the same surprise had we known nothing.

The NDP’s Andrea Horwath said the leaked legislation guaranteed private healthcare. The end was not near: it was here. But Bill 74 does not mention privatization.

Bill 74

The People’s Health Care Act (Bill 74) dissolves the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs). Most clinicians cheered.

The LHINs are full of eager, well-intentioned people, who inflict programs and metrics on clinicians to justify the LHINs’ existence. I feel bad for the LHIN people. But anytime they launched a new LHIN directive, I felt worse for us.

Here are five things you need to know about the bill: Continue reading “Bill 74 – The Biggest Change to Healthcare in 50 Years! Seriously?”

Before Netflix, we watched shows at the same time each week.

People built rituals to make sure they could flop in front of the TV on Friday at 8 pm.

We could not miss our show.  There was no way to watch it later.

After the last episode of a favourite series, we felt lost. What were we going to do at 8 pm on Friday?

Last week, doctors across Canada watched the final episode in a seven-year reality show staring the Government of Ontario and the Ontario Medical Association. Most of the audience started watching in 2015, when the Liberal government attacked doctors and slashed fees. Docs had to close clinics. Others laid off staff. Everyone grumbled.

Premier Wynne’s systematic attacks genetically modified a new generation of doctors tuned in to politics. They will never hold an “essentially benign view of government.” They got hooked on a gothic mini-series and have become cult followers.

But last week the show ended: The board of arbitration ruled. Continue reading “Physicians Can Finally Move Beyond Fees”

Obama did it. Trump does it. Trudeau does it too. Politicians talk about values as if they know what voters think.

A politician promotes his values to normalize his vision.

Tricky politicians use familiar words and give them new meaning. They use popular support for one thing to build support for something completely different.

For example, since everyone supports motherhood, it shows we support apple pie too.

On his quest for state medicine, Tommy Douglas told a story. Young Tom needed surgery. His family was poor. A surgeon fixed Tommy for free. It was great for Tommy, but what about all the other sick kids? Is it fair that farmers must choose between losing the farm and losing a daughter’s limb?

Compassion Not Equality

Most Medicare books start the same way. The author tells a story about disease and financial ruin, before Medicare. They appeal to compassion and inflame fear of loss. People should never suffer without care or go broke from medical bills.

Canadians agree. We are moved by suffering and loss. And that is where we get tricked. Douglas and company trades compassion for “equality” and fear for “care regardless of ability to pay.”

But compassion is not the same as equality. They are as different as colour and temperature. No one knows the temperature of purple. They are different categories. Compassion and equality are different categories also. It is a category mistake to conflate the two. Continue reading “Compassion Not Equality – Canadian Values in Medicare”