(OTTAWA) The Council of Canadians released a new report on medicare today, scathing in its criticism of the Liberals' destructive track record, and bold in its proposals for the future of the beleaguered social program.

"Under the Liberal watch, medicare has been programmed to fail. Jean Chrétien has miles to go if he wants his health care legacy to be a positive one," said Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians. "The Romanow Commission will only be worth the effort if it calls for a fully public health care program, and the Prime Minister has the political courage to stand up to those who seek to profit from illness."

Barlow will be crisscrossing the country on a 15 city speaking tour that coincides with the Romanow Commission hearings on the Future of Health Care in Canada.

"Our best hope for medicare is public pressure," said Barlow. "Canadians fought to win medicare, and we will have to fight to save it. Our members will be vigorous and creative in sending this message to Romanow and Chrétien in the coming months."

A National Health Program, says Barlow, is the best and boldest solution to saving our most cherished social program. A National Health Program would include these principles:

1. Profit is not the cure. A for-profit system is not only inequitable, it costs more because there must be a return to shareholders on health care "investment." In fact, for-profit parts of our own system, including fee-for-service and drug patent laws, are the parts that have spiralled out of control, cost-wise.
2. Complete the original vision of medicare. The compromise that was built into Medicare in the beginning to appease its critics, has created an untenable situation. We must expand and improve medicare in order to be able to contain costs. Another system - more equitable, closer to home, and cheaper - is available to us.
3. The values of economic globalization are killing medicare. By embracing global competitiveness, the federal government and many provincial governments have opted for a private health care future. If the Liberal government allows health care to become a commodity, the GATS and NAFTA will dictate how we deliver health care forever. There is another model, which would promote universal publicly-funded and delivered health care as a fundamental human right; Canadians must reassert our commitment to this vision in our own country and around the world.

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