The Conservative Government & Healthcare – Cause for Hope or Fear?

If we believe the Toronto Star, big business and executive health companies should flourish under Ford.

Conservatives are the party of the rich and famous.

Except that the average conservative voter drives a mini-van, has 2 kids and buys Tim Horton’s coffee.

She does not sip orange frappe mochaccinos in open toed shoes on Yorkville Avenue – unless she’s on vacation.

If we believe the opposition, the PCs will cut jobs. Even the Wynne Liberals cut 1,000s of jobs and spent the money elsewhere. They just didn’t tell anyone about it. So maybe we should expect the PCs to do the same?

But Ford promised he wouldn’t fire anyone.

Given the fury of fear mongering and campaign promises, can anyone predict what this conservative government means for healthcare in Ontario?

It all depends on what kind of conservative the government turns out to be. There are many flavours.

And conservatives, like most people, often hold conflicting ideas. Purists are rare. Deep inside every political movement, debates linger about who is, or is not, a true member.

What a True Conservative Believes

A true conservative puts people first. She sees individuals as parts of families and strong communities. She promotes individual freedom and personal responsibility. She believes that people want to be treated like grownups.

A true conservative believes that voters have the best sense of how to live their own lives. She trusts people to make better decisions for themselves than she could make on their behalf.

Indeed, making decisions about our own bodies is the definition of freedom.

We each own our own body.

For the most part, we do what we want to our own bodies.

Our body is our personal property.

Property ownership is the basis of freedom, starting with our body.

A true conservative values western society; it took several thousand years to build. A conservative sees culture as something special, something worth cultivating as it changes and grows.

Western civilization is not a weed to be rooted out. A true conservative is profoundly grateful to live in a western democracy.

Finally, conservatives believe life is more than what we measure. The most important things defy explanation: love, fulfillment, beauty, art, culture, religion and more.

What Conservatives Think About Government

True conservatives support good government in the way sports fans support good referees. Referees should never tell players how to play. Good referees apply the rules and punish rule-breakers.

In the same way, government should never tell people how to live. People should be allowed to live and work as they wish, within broad boundaries enforced by government as directed by the people.

Good government should be nonintrusive. While good government can help, government can cause great harm too. The more government tries to do, the more it risks causing ruin.

Governments that do less require less funding. True conservatives usually want to decrease the size of government.  Unfortunately, this often becomes the main thing conservatives are known for.

What it Means for Healthcare

All the parties campaigned on big promises.

End hallway medicine.

Fix wait times.

Build more long-term care beds.

Fix the mental health crisis.

Conservative governments often behave unpredictably with healthcare. They either ignore it or they try to haywire together a whirligig of conflicting political ideas.

Some conservative governments, in the past, have taken authoritarian sledgehammers to healthcare causing pain like the abuse under Wynne. And others have tried to build legacy projects of their own.

Will the Conservatives empower patients with more choice and control?

Or will they treat patients like children and mandate healthy living?

Will the Conservatives support self-determination and private ownership?

Or will they tell doctors how to run their offices and further erode ownership of clinics?

Will the Conservatives undo the Liberals’ rat’s nest of legislation aimed to direct patient care?

Or will they pass laws of their own, choking medicine even more?

Will they incentivize innovation to fix patient flow and hallway medicine?

Or will they dictate how hospitals must run, how doctors must work?

Conservative governments face the same limitations as every other party. Governments excel at designing and funding new programs. They can spend money, write policy and pass laws.

But they cannot implement. They do not have the tools.

Running programs requires tools that governments do not possess. Even great business leaders working inside government cannot use government to run business.

So, what will healthcare look like under the conservatives? They already fixed a ridiculous immunization policy the Liberals had thrown together. And they reached out the OMA asking to negotiate. Not bad for week one.

Doug Ford campaigned on being a new kind of politician. He is anti-establishment. But does that mean he is a new kind of conservative?

After years of mismanagement by a most un-liberal regime, healthcare needs a new approach. Will the new government act like a true conservative? We shall see soon enough.

10 thoughts on “The Conservative Government & Healthcare – Cause for Hope or Fear?”

  1. Good thoughts Shawn,

    I guess one of the main objectives of the government is to motivate people to the right actions (productivity, saving, responsible reproduction..), and to increase the efficiency in the society.

    There’s no other way to cope with the growing social programs/needs, with Health Care at the top of the list, than to build up the productivity & ensure that ALL members can somehow contribute, regardless of their abilities.

    While the official statistics put unemployment at ~6%, the actual data shows that ~1/3 of working age Canadians are not working, and another 1/3 of Canadians have not been on holidays >2 years

    No wonder that with this consumption/contribution ethics, the provincial debt of Ontario is the highest on the face of earth, and the provincial one is raging out of control in the same direction.

    But isn’t that all over the Westernized world: people/governments just keep borrowing money & spending as if they never expect to pay it back, piling the debt on the up-coming generations (interesting, the Boomers got the INHERITANCE from the generation before, but see it naturally to pass down the DEBTS)?
    Apparently not: Germany with ~60 bln/year surplus sets the world a different example, and now the US is working it’s way to the financial balance (as minimum).

    In media-heated euphoria, our fellow-citizens are happy to show middle finger to American president with one hand, while they start packing the suitcases with their other hand to send their fresh-graduate offspring.. to the “inhumane/backward” USA, where the jobs are/will be, as they are going to leave the burnt out land with gloom perspective & multi-billion debts instead of inheritance..

    But hopefully not, the common sense shall prevail & the Ontario elections gave us a strong feeling of hope 🙂
    Not idealizing the Con’s, we are still looking for the healthier long-term perspectives.. And the strong OMA will help them to steer in the right direction!

    1. Solid comments Alexey. I also worry about the debt. It takes more than one term to dig out of the mess left by Mc Wynnty and company.

      Government should help but not guide. Unfortunately, many politicians find that it’s faster to just force through their designs.

      I really hope that Ford repeals as much legislation as possible.

      Thanks again for posting such thoughtful comments!

      Cheers

  2. Pathology was turned into a technical field by the liberals, where pathologists are whipped into shape by non-physician health care admins who see specimens as numbers, not as patients. Where they are talked down to like incompetent children for not reaching target metrics. Where their patient volume and complexity balloons but their funding does not.

    Will the new govt turn this around? I doubt it. But only because we are not asking.

    Can the OMA support a subsection legally? If a path bills ohip for hospital work, ohip pays 0. This is clearly not fair value and I cannot see it being upheld in a court of law, considering how there is a fee schedule that somehow magically manifests when practicing outside a hospital.

    1. You’ve raised some very important issues, Cain. Have you shared these thoughts with the negotiations team? negotiations@oma.org

      I spent 18 months in pathology during residency. I feel that gives me a better sense of what you are talking about. Even 20 years ago, I remember the number of specimens increasing exponentially while staff salaries crept up slowly. I don’t know how you guys do it.

      Thanks so much for taking time to share a comment!

    1. Hey Kash!

      Great to hear from you. I will definitely check it out. The favourite argument against the Singapore system is that “They have a different culture.”

      Again, thanks for taking time to read and post a comment!

      Cheers

  3. Hope for some…fear for others…in particular for those who had thrown their hats into the ring in support of the previous government’s statist/ collectivist policies…the LHIN boondoggle is most likely over and done with and its upper layer employees will have to find useful work if they can find anyone that requires their rather doubtful “ skills” and “expertise”.

    1. Well said, Andris.

      Since Ford promised no firing, I suspect all the LHIN employees will get repurposed jobs somewhere else in the MOH. Steve Paikin tweeted that he heard rumours that the LHINs have gone on a hiring spree in light of Ford’s hiring freeze at the government level! Usually the most qualified bureaucrats and politicians jump ship when they see big changes coming. They either hop into another bureaucracy, like former Minister of Health Eric Hoskins going to a federal patronage position, or they get consulting jobs. Those who are not able to jump into something else tend to stick it out inside the system.

      USA Today did a study that showed government workers were more likely to die than to get fired.

      Thanks again!

      1. Reminds one of the life cycle of the post modernist progressive moth…in the embryonic stage the progressive egg is deposited in the school system to be indoctrinated…the progressive larva hatches from the egg in universities to be indoctrinated under the protection and guidance of progressive SJW professors as in Wilfred Laurier…the progressive caterpillars eat their own university ‘ egg shell’ , feeding off the university and subsidizing tax payers …growing too big for the university they shed and molt and enter junior positions within the bureaucratic structures within progressive governments where they pupate…when unfortunate events occur as in today’s Ontario with a change of government…they are madly hired by older (about to be transferred) kindred spirits within structures such as LHINs that are about to be limited or eradicated, where , as pupa/ cocoons, they are expected to rest and quietly metamorphasize , patiently waiting for that glorious time that there is a change in government in their favour so that they can emerge as moths to resume their damaging fabric destroying life cycle within government .

        The new government should make government service as uncomfortable as possible to such destructive moths …the environment should be made repellant to them…the “ cedar “ approach…governmental bureaucracy , like clothes, should be washed regularly…larvae should be sprayed by free speech and a diversity of opinions in schools and universities.

        1. You, Andris, are a very creative fellow!

          I enjoyed how you wove together the moth lifecycle and the moths destroying the social fabric they need to live. 🙂

          It reminded me of Antonio Gramsci’s ‘long march through the institutions’.

          Thanks again for posting!

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