To fix Canada’s health care crisis, we need free-market competition, private options
Consider the debacle around Phoenix, the federal government’s disastrous payroll processing software. Launched in 2016, its development and problems cost several billion dollars, yet its errors have affected 500,000 federal public service workers over the past few years. It’s so bad, and so riddled with errors, that the federal government is now replacing it with a new system – at yet another enormous cost.
Consider, too, that the cost of public health insurance for the average Canadian family , adjusted for inflation, has increased more than 80 per cent since 1997 and by almost 108 per cent for a single Canadian. We spend about 12 per cent of our GDP on health care, more than 27 other comparable countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Some might say we just have to fund this system properly, hence the new health care accord between the federal government and the provinces. But let’s recognize that for what it is: a stopgap solution. How many times have we already seen the federal government provide a new deal to the provinces? As we run out of money, ideological dogma has given us one of the developed world’s worst-performing health care sectors. Often, we consider the United States as our only alternative. No one is suggesting we adopt what the Americans have. But in Canada, we don’t have a health care system; we have a queue system. And if Canadians want world-class care, we need to embrace world-class thinking.
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