Sunday, June 12, 2005

Why we need Public Health Care

I was going to write a long eloquent post as to why we need a strong public healthcare system in Canada.

Rick Barnes beat me to it. Please go there and read this article and this one.

Good job Rick.

Lets start going hard and publishing our reasons and ideas for saving the system. I want to challenge to other Dippers and the Progressive Bloggers to help create the solution rather than wringing our hands about the problem.

More to come...

Update:

Scott Tribe has taken up the challenge. He makes some good points and stimulates debate. I am not going to comment on his position (yet), but he is taking a rational, calm approach.

As a backgrounder on some of the history, have a look at this CBC documentary. A lot of arguements should seem familiar.

5 Comments:

At 12:39 AM, Blogger ricky said...

Hi

I read Scott's post and it is a good discussion starter.

I am of course not in agreement with expamding the two tier system that we have and would like to see it rolled back some.

Still the discussion need to be one of how do we deliver the best care in the most cost efficeint and timely fashion.

As Scott points out, it need not be a partisan issue. All of our leaders need to be open to the discussion of meeting the standard laid before us by the supreme court.

I too do not see the decision in the negative. The court has said fix it or we have the solution.

Salut

Rick

 
At 10:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's a good article by Mr. Romanow that summarizes some of the arguments:


http://www.chsrf.ca/other_documents/romanow/pdf/consumerchoice_e.pdf

And one more by Health Council of Canada:

http://hcc-ccs.com/report/Annual_Report/exec_sum/ExecSumENG.pdf

The second one is full of all the initiatives for healthcare renewal in Canada. I think I've said this till I'm blue(er) in the face...but there are tons of options to be explored before we turn to the business sector to solve (intensify) this problem

 
At 7:44 PM, Blogger Greg said...

Depend on the Liberals to rationally sell out medicare. Beware Liberals in "Progressive" clothing.

 
At 8:36 PM, Blogger Oxford County Liberals said...

Oh brother.

I am the last person to advocate free-for-all medicare Greg.

When all the European countries are ranked above Canada, yet have two-tiered medicine and dont have public healthcare collapsing... they must be looked at, and should be without descending into the "we;re not going to have a two-tierd health care like the US"

I may lean Liberal in my voting patterns.. but Greg, you sound at tines like Martin and Dossanjh.

 
At 1:31 PM, Blogger Mike said...

John I whole heartedly agree, hence my stance against private insurance and private healthcare. Dr. Relman and others have studies that show that our single-payer system is more administratively effiecient thatn a private one. As many letters to the editors (at least in the Ottawa Citizen) attest to, in the US, a great deal of money is spent on processing forms, cheking with insurance companies about coverage and in general doing Accounts Recievable activities instead of healing the sick. My sister is a nurse in Arkansas and she tells me the biggest department in her hospital is AR.

I think we have room to streamline administration in Canada as well, but let's not assume privatization will fix it - it will actually make administration worse.

 

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