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Giving The National Post A Boner
Jun. 22nd, 2005 03:50 pmCanada's Supreme Court struck down a ruling in the Zeliotis v Quebec case that involves the Canada Health Act. The act, which is the basis of the Canadian health care system, is the touchpoint for a Quebec prohibitation on private health insurance. In a 4-3 decision, the Supreme Court's ruling states that excessive waiting lists are a sign that the Quebec health care system has failed to deliver needed services in a timely fashion, and that to deny individuals access to health care violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Following me so far? Good, because here is where we hit all the kaka.
Many Canadian conservatives, and far more US ones have taken this as the sign from above that Canada's 'welfare state' is ineffective, unsustainable, and doomed to be broken up and parceled out to the more efficient, better managed, and above all, more free and democratic engines of private insurance and health care providers. The National Post, the same people who regularly run those insightful stories about how 66% of Canadians disapprove of public health and support a more Amnericanized system, have been gleefully piling commentary and editorals trumpeting the decision as a 'victory' for their side.
The splooge is currently running thick down Don Mills Rd.
On the opposite side, the proponants of public health care have been scrambling for all matter of justifications and attacks against the private system, making some good points, and bringing up an equal volume of nonsensical ones and base fearmongering. Since health care is considered to be a central aspect of the Liberal platform (not like that means support), the minority government is bound to weigh in heavily on this issue. Provincially, this is the final deathblow for Jean Charest's Liberal government, who is set to get massacred at the polls next year.
So, with the poop flying back and forth as furiously as at a monkey's wedding, the actuality of the situation has been lost under a turd the size of Montreal.
Note that, being a Torontonian, I am bound to cleverly associate Montreal with 'turd'. It's a civic duty, actually listed in the City of Toronto bylaws. Honest.
What is the actuality? It's actually fairly simple.
First, the grumblings of activist judges on the Supreme Court is the first, weakest, and more self-serving of arguments. The Supreme Court as correctly and consistantly based their ruling on the laws and legal precidents of Canadian law. One of the rights listed in our Charter of Rights is universal accessibility to health care. When waiting lists go prohibitively long, the court is right in deciding that the excessive wait is in violation of the Charter. Since the court has no say or ability to mandate government spending or ministries, it is right to conclude that if the government cannot provide timely and safe health care services to all, it is unconsitutional to prevent Canadians from seeking it from a private source.
Note the basis of the decision. If the government is unable to provide care in a timely manner, it is unconsitutional to block access to care. In a specific set of cases, in a specific area of Quebec's medical care, there was a failure to provide reasonable access to treatment, and the law prohibited alternatives. Unlike the gleeful right or the woeful left seem to think, this is not rendering Canada's Health Act or other provincal bans on procedures unconsitutional by default. It does create a precident that allows for the challenging of those laws, and sets up a structure in which further debate on health care is debated in.
For the defenders of health care. This is not the end of the world. The Canadian health care system is in trouble. It always has been in trouble. That's because it is a massive sprawling initiative that is the most comprehensive form of its kind in the world. You could cut the funding in half or triple it, and it would still be in trouble. Even the bogyman of private insurance isn't that big of a deal. What this ruling should serve is as a wake up call to continue to reform the health care system and look past the needs of today for the needs of tomorrow as well. Making the statement that 'health care is universal' is not worth anything unless the system is fair and accessible in a reasonable time frame to all.
Fortunately for the defenders of health care, for the most part in Canada, it is.
And for the National Post crowd, and the American businesses who have spun this report into 'proof' that the Canadian system is in shambles and only good old capitalism can save it, I say rubbish. It takes about ten seconds of research to show both statements are abundantly false.
Currently 98% of health care is covered by the government in the Canadian Health Care system. The system is fully and equally accessible to every Canadian citizen, regardless of age, status of health, or situation. This is directly constrasted with the US system, so touted for its efficeny and effectiveness. Well, when you look at it, the US system is neither effiecent or particularly effective. At it's best, the US hospitals are unmatched by any in the world, and the top tier get access to health care easily doubly as effective as the next best option. However, that does only apply to the 1% of the population that can afford it.
The average American hospital and health care is a different thing. When you balance out the top medical facilities, afloat on a raft of money, and the bottom marginalized ones in depressed and ignored areas, you find yourself with a medical standard approximately similar to Canada's and most of Western Europe. However, when you start to look at individual statistics, such as infant mortality, the numbers take a shocking plumment in many areas. Mainly due to the fact that many of the worst equipped and worst funded facilities also face the largest load of inbound extreme care patients. Since they cannot attract or keep the best doctors, many of them are staffed with much less talented MDs, which in turn drives down the available care.
Effective and effiecent are also two terms normally brandied about, and again, neither are true. The US spends 13% of its GNP on health care (amoung the highest percentages in the world), compared to 9% spent by Canada, and the cost per person is nearly double in the US. Even more telling is that in some areas, such as administrative, the costs are almost six times that of the Canadian system. The US spends more money on health care than any developed nation, and yet, in all of this, recently studies have shown more than 43 million Americans have no health care, over 100 million are considered under insured, health insurences costs have risen 59% in the last 5 years (costing the US 25,000 GM jobs), and sickness/hospitalisation is the single major cause of personal bankrupcy in the United States.
Despite the issues of the Canadian system, there is ample data to show that the US system isn't necessarily the answer either. And the supporters of private care have failed to look at the realities of implementing it. Canada's health care system is so large and enmeshed with the Canadian economy that opening it to private care would cause immense disruptions nationally. I have no doubt that a certain level of private care will eventually exist in Canada. Let's face it, there's too much money there for it not to be challenged, but you will not see the feared 'two-tiered' system simply because the damage it would do to the existing system would in no way be compensated by the advanatages it would bring.
So relax, take it as a wake up call to look into system reform again (I hear Ray Romanow is free) and ignore the Conservative ranting. Hell, everyone else does.
Following me so far? Good, because here is where we hit all the kaka.
Many Canadian conservatives, and far more US ones have taken this as the sign from above that Canada's 'welfare state' is ineffective, unsustainable, and doomed to be broken up and parceled out to the more efficient, better managed, and above all, more free and democratic engines of private insurance and health care providers. The National Post, the same people who regularly run those insightful stories about how 66% of Canadians disapprove of public health and support a more Amnericanized system, have been gleefully piling commentary and editorals trumpeting the decision as a 'victory' for their side.
The splooge is currently running thick down Don Mills Rd.
On the opposite side, the proponants of public health care have been scrambling for all matter of justifications and attacks against the private system, making some good points, and bringing up an equal volume of nonsensical ones and base fearmongering. Since health care is considered to be a central aspect of the Liberal platform (not like that means support), the minority government is bound to weigh in heavily on this issue. Provincially, this is the final deathblow for Jean Charest's Liberal government, who is set to get massacred at the polls next year.
So, with the poop flying back and forth as furiously as at a monkey's wedding, the actuality of the situation has been lost under a turd the size of Montreal.
Note that, being a Torontonian, I am bound to cleverly associate Montreal with 'turd'. It's a civic duty, actually listed in the City of Toronto bylaws. Honest.
What is the actuality? It's actually fairly simple.
First, the grumblings of activist judges on the Supreme Court is the first, weakest, and more self-serving of arguments. The Supreme Court as correctly and consistantly based their ruling on the laws and legal precidents of Canadian law. One of the rights listed in our Charter of Rights is universal accessibility to health care. When waiting lists go prohibitively long, the court is right in deciding that the excessive wait is in violation of the Charter. Since the court has no say or ability to mandate government spending or ministries, it is right to conclude that if the government cannot provide timely and safe health care services to all, it is unconsitutional to prevent Canadians from seeking it from a private source.
Note the basis of the decision. If the government is unable to provide care in a timely manner, it is unconsitutional to block access to care. In a specific set of cases, in a specific area of Quebec's medical care, there was a failure to provide reasonable access to treatment, and the law prohibited alternatives. Unlike the gleeful right or the woeful left seem to think, this is not rendering Canada's Health Act or other provincal bans on procedures unconsitutional by default. It does create a precident that allows for the challenging of those laws, and sets up a structure in which further debate on health care is debated in.
For the defenders of health care. This is not the end of the world. The Canadian health care system is in trouble. It always has been in trouble. That's because it is a massive sprawling initiative that is the most comprehensive form of its kind in the world. You could cut the funding in half or triple it, and it would still be in trouble. Even the bogyman of private insurance isn't that big of a deal. What this ruling should serve is as a wake up call to continue to reform the health care system and look past the needs of today for the needs of tomorrow as well. Making the statement that 'health care is universal' is not worth anything unless the system is fair and accessible in a reasonable time frame to all.
Fortunately for the defenders of health care, for the most part in Canada, it is.
And for the National Post crowd, and the American businesses who have spun this report into 'proof' that the Canadian system is in shambles and only good old capitalism can save it, I say rubbish. It takes about ten seconds of research to show both statements are abundantly false.
Currently 98% of health care is covered by the government in the Canadian Health Care system. The system is fully and equally accessible to every Canadian citizen, regardless of age, status of health, or situation. This is directly constrasted with the US system, so touted for its efficeny and effectiveness. Well, when you look at it, the US system is neither effiecent or particularly effective. At it's best, the US hospitals are unmatched by any in the world, and the top tier get access to health care easily doubly as effective as the next best option. However, that does only apply to the 1% of the population that can afford it.
The average American hospital and health care is a different thing. When you balance out the top medical facilities, afloat on a raft of money, and the bottom marginalized ones in depressed and ignored areas, you find yourself with a medical standard approximately similar to Canada's and most of Western Europe. However, when you start to look at individual statistics, such as infant mortality, the numbers take a shocking plumment in many areas. Mainly due to the fact that many of the worst equipped and worst funded facilities also face the largest load of inbound extreme care patients. Since they cannot attract or keep the best doctors, many of them are staffed with much less talented MDs, which in turn drives down the available care.
Effective and effiecent are also two terms normally brandied about, and again, neither are true. The US spends 13% of its GNP on health care (amoung the highest percentages in the world), compared to 9% spent by Canada, and the cost per person is nearly double in the US. Even more telling is that in some areas, such as administrative, the costs are almost six times that of the Canadian system. The US spends more money on health care than any developed nation, and yet, in all of this, recently studies have shown more than 43 million Americans have no health care, over 100 million are considered under insured, health insurences costs have risen 59% in the last 5 years (costing the US 25,000 GM jobs), and sickness/hospitalisation is the single major cause of personal bankrupcy in the United States.
Despite the issues of the Canadian system, there is ample data to show that the US system isn't necessarily the answer either. And the supporters of private care have failed to look at the realities of implementing it. Canada's health care system is so large and enmeshed with the Canadian economy that opening it to private care would cause immense disruptions nationally. I have no doubt that a certain level of private care will eventually exist in Canada. Let's face it, there's too much money there for it not to be challenged, but you will not see the feared 'two-tiered' system simply because the damage it would do to the existing system would in no way be compensated by the advanatages it would bring.
So relax, take it as a wake up call to look into system reform again (I hear Ray Romanow is free) and ignore the Conservative ranting. Hell, everyone else does.
