We expect to get what we pay for. Most businesses offer a money back guarantee: it builds trust and save time for staff serving unsatisfied customers.
Should there be a money-back guarantee for Medicare?
Sweden’s publicly funded healthcare system offers a ”money back” guarantee. In 2005, Sweden offered treatment elsewhere, paid by government, if wait times were exceeded.
Others do the same:
- Roche, a pharmaceutical giant, recently offered a money back guarantee on a cancer drug.
- Some alternative medicine offers a money back guarantee.
- Should doctors guarantee results?
A few dismiss this as pandering to a consumerist society or a violation of historical medical agreements (Money-back IVF: weighing the pros and cons).
Bureaucrats love talking about provider accountability, practice audits and accountability to the public purse. But they seem much less excited to talk about system accountability for patient access to surgery or imaging. Would a money back guarantee promote accountability?
Since Canada outlaws competition to state-funded Medicare, shouldn’t it guarantee healthcare access and service? On what principle can Medicare offer the only care available and be allowed to provide terrible service? What Canadian value does this represent?
We tolerate it because those who can, fly south for care. Those with power to lobby for legislative change see no reason to bother. They get prompt service south of the border and the public gets ‘free care’. Pundits preach equality to the rest of us left waiting in Canada. As long as everyone endures equal waits in Canada, pulpiteers support the status quo.
What do we call wait times guarantees that do not deliver as promised? When is a guarantee not a guarantee at all? Guaranteeing outcomes might be too hard to tackle, but at least we can start by guaranteeing access and service.
Aside from garage sales and craft fairs, we never willingly accept a no-money-back-guarantee for goods or service. Why do we accept it for more important things? Isn’t cancer surgery or antibiotics for your child’s pneumonia important enough to be worthy of a money-back guarantee for access?
The state promised to provide healthcare. If it cannot, government should guarantee service somewhere else, in Canada.