Healthcare

I have been avoiding this issue for a while, simply because I am not an expert in healthcare. However, this is a hot issue in Canada right now and this is a good opportunity to start a conversation on it.

First, a few facts about Canadian Healthcare System:

- It is "universal" according Canada Health Act, meaning that essential healthcare (doctor's visits, surgeries and hospitalization) is funded by tax payers.

- We have a shortage of doctors and nurses, although we have a large immigrant community that has the expertise but doesn't have easy access to licensing (lobbying power of the physicians association).

-Wait times in emergency rooms are such that some heart patients die before they receive care. Getting an appointment with a specialist could take several months and some surgeries require a few years of waiting time (e.g. hip replacement).

- Provinces such as Alberta and Quebec (which usually dance to their own music) have recently started allowing private healthcare. This has caused a storm all over the country over this issue.


Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail, who recently went through hip replacement writes: "Switzerland, which is a small country, doesn't have any central management at all. Health services are all managed locally, and and they seem to work quite well. What I do know is that management by mid-level provincial government bureaucrats — which is essentially the system we have now — makes it almost impossible to innovate or be flexible on the local level. Even obviously sensible changes are very hard to implement."

Questions:

- Would a private healthcare system shorten our wait-times? Or the shortage of healthcare workers? How and to what extent?

- Are we paying too much taxes and not receiving enough care? Would it cost us less if we had private insurance like the U.S.?

- Would a combination of private-public healthcare be best? e.g. Every doctor has to have X% of public service hours minimum and the rest private? How would hospitals function? Or clinics?

Generally, in a publicly funded system, a good portion of funding goes into administration. The larger the system, the bigger is the administration cost. However, would the addition of private clinics and hospitals reduce our taxes? If not, this just means that we will be paying for a fully public system that we won't use! Perhaps it's time we consider a locally managed healthcare (provincial?) instead of insisting on privatization?

I'd like to know what you have to say.