Dr. Profit and The Canadian Medical Association’s (past) push for privatization

Dr. Brian Day is a Vancouver-based orthopedic surgeon who has spent many years pushing private health care. Known as “Dr. Profit,” he was president of the Canadian Medical Association from 2007-2008 and used his term as a platform to try to dismantle Canada’s public health care system. This isn't surprising coming from the person who told the Romanow Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada to "repeal the Canada Health Act", "introduce privatization and contracting out" and "accept economic reality and accept user fees."

Most recently he has been lobbying provincial governments and media outlets with a plan that would change how health care services are delivered. "Patient-focused funding" would see public hospitals compete with private clinics – like Dr. Day's own Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver, B.C. – for patients. What Dr. Day isn't saying is that this funding system has been tried in Britain with disastrous results. Costs soared and British doctors have spoken out vehemently against the funding model.

Dr. Day is now embroiled in a legal battle with the B.C. government over billing practices at his private clinics. He, along with other B.C.-based private clinic owners, have filed a counter claim against the government to strike down the B.C. Medical Protection Act to allow U.S.-style private insurance companies access to the "health care market" in British Columbia.

Dr. Profit has made it very clear he will not rest until public health care no longer exists in Canada.

Resources:

• Fact sheet: Why Patient focused funding doesn’t work
• Article: Dr. Profit Fudges the Facts: CMA delegates kept from discussing controversial privatization paper, Canadian Perspectives, Autumn 2007
• Article: Brian Day’s False Start, Canadian Perspectives, Autumn 2006