Shh be quiet I see dead Canadian trade barriers!
By Melvin J. Howard
The issue of health care delivery in Canada hasn't been in the news much lately, hmm I wonder why? Could it be because I am putting a magnifying glass to the Canadian health care system for breaches of trade rules? For the last 12 to 13 years that I have been trying to enter the Canadian health care market. From Federal to Provincial elections that’s all that was talked about now nothing. The last Federal election lacked the heated debate of two-tier medicine that raged on for years. It was a major factor in deciding which party to support in the federal election back then.
Spending for Canada's publicly-funded health care system approached $160-billion in 2007, representing more than 10% of the GDP. Seventy per cent of funding came from the federal government and the provinces. The mix of public and private financing and delivery of health services was always hotly debated.
The Canadian Medical Association last president Dr. Robert Ouellet urged Canadians to dispense with the dogma of universal health care and embrace a "mixed" system of public and private health care.
This is what he said mixed public and private practice can be a positive if it contributes to improved access to health care," he said."Does it make sense, in the face of a shortage of operating rooms, to ban surgeons who provide 90% of their services in a hospital from performing five to 10% of their surgeries in a private clinic? "I am talking about improving it by allowing the private sector to intervene in a complementary way, where possible, in areas where the public sector is unable to provide services."Instead of trying to ban the private sector, we need to provide a framework, with conditions, that will enable it to intervene in an orderly fashion."
Canada's prime ministers in waiting in the past were going over the same issues electoral year after year, bed shortages etc. Let’s not forget THE AMERCANIZATION OF CANIDIAN HEALTH CARE OR CODE WORD THE TWO -TEIR MEDICINE MONSTER. That all the candidates drag out every election year. Protect our universal, single-payer public health care system from the Americans yada yada yada. The Bloc Quebecois on the other hand wanted their own separate, universal health-care system in Quebec which included private delivery.
There is an upcoming election in British Columbia and what no talk of the American bogeyman two-tier health care creeping in. Ah those were the days getting calls from my US bankers and shareholders after some political hopeful would stand on their soapbox and preach if we are elected we are going to ban this and that. No private this and that we will not let the Americans come in and mess with our health care system. Then after the elections they would put the old AMERIANIZATION OF CANIDIAN HEALTH CARE OR CODE WORD TWO-TEIR MEDICINE. Back in its box for another election year, the slogan did its job it got someone elected. But guess what nothing ever happened no ban, no restrictions on private Canadian health clinics business as usual. We were left starting all over again more money more time more effort. Canada is famous for its royal studies on health like the famous Roy Romanow The Future Of Health Care In Canada 400 pages that went nowhere. If I hear of another royal study about the Canadian Health Care system I will puke. Here is some inside info that comes from a politician friend of mind. When you don’t want to act on controversial issue commission a study then it seems like you are doing something but your really not. Every time one of these studies was announced we were put on hold. Luckily this time an International Tribunal will finally get to hear the study of Melvin J. Howard from the United States of America on Canadian Health Care.
Now for good PR measure the Canadian Medical Association has elected a new president Dr. Jeffery Turnbull that is an opponent of two-tier medicine what I have come to know as code word for American medicine. I am not buying any of it for one-second Canada had its chance to rectify this trade issue it continued year after year of doing nothing but gives us grief and lip service. Roadblock after roadblock costless delay after delay it never ended. I will call upon the Tribunal not only to award us our costs but hefty damages as well.
