The Council replies: Letters to the editor

CMA offers wrong prescription for public health care

The Council of Canadians responded to The Canadian Medical Association’s recent policy paper “Medicare Plus: Toward a Sustainable Publicly Funded Health Care System in Canada” with the following letter to the editor, which was published in The Ottawa Citizen, The Penticton Herald, The Winnipeg Free Press, The Calgary Sun, The Peterborough Examiner, Portage La Prairie, The Windsor Star, The Timmins Daily Press, The Belleville Intelligencer and The Owen Sound Sun Times.

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) is looking at the wrong remedy for fixing wait times. The association’s proposal to use private health care in Canada to “improve” access to services will take much-needed doctors and health care professionals out of the public system and use public, taxpayer money to pay private shareholder profits. Worse, it will not improve wait times.

The recommendations set out in the CMA’s policy document released July 30 fail the most basic tests based on evidence. Other countries have tried – and are now moving away from – private health care, finding it actually increases wait times.

New Zealand and the United Kingdom both had Canadian-style health care systems until they were opened up to the private sector in an attempt to decrease wait times. Not only did the poaching of health professionals by the private sector lead to a loss of capacity in the public system in both countries, but according to University of Toronto health policy researcher, Colleen Flood, specialists “may even have an incentive to maintain long waiting lists in the public sector to generate demand for services on a private basis.”

As a result, the injection of private health care in New Zealand was deemed a failure. While New Zealand has had some success in constraining health costs, elective surgery waiting lists have grown.  Changes are now being made to increase public health care capacity in the country.

As for the United Kingdom, the problem was addressed in 2001 with the hiring of 45,000 health professionals by the public system. It was a necessary move since market-based reforms had lengthened the wait times. Recently, the British government announced it is abandoning the use of private health care, and will no longer contract out surgeries to private clinics.

How many examples can we find of countries that have decreased wait times after moving to a two-tier system? Zero.

I have no doubt that the vast majority of doctors care first and foremost for their patients and their well-being. This does not mean that the public policies their delegates support will adequately address issues of waiting times, access and of fairness.

In this case, the prescription is wrong. And profit is not the cure.

Guy Caron, Health Care Campaigner
Council of Canadians

For more information about public health care in Canada, visit profitisnotthecure.ca.