In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with comedian, writer, and podcaster, John Rocha, to talk about his new documentary about the Japanese government's approach to healthcare, and how it could work in Canada.
00:00:00.000One of the things I learned from your documentary, Colin, is that in Japan, they have sort of three different types of hospitals that you can go to.
00:00:06.280You have the government-funded, government-operated hospitals.
00:00:09.320You also have nonprofit-run hospitals, and then you have privately-run hospitals.
00:00:12.860And no matter where a patient chooses to go, basically the dollars follow the patient.
00:00:18.320So the subsidy goes wherever you choose, which creates the kind of competition that you would want in any market.
00:00:23.760and it creates more options because people have the choice to go to the hospital where they have
00:00:29.940the best experience. The overarching rules are that every single healthcare professional needs
00:00:35.680to be certified by the Japanese government. So it's not like they're just letting anyone go in
00:00:39.400and perform surgeries. You still have to have the same kind of medical license that you would have
00:00:43.540in Canada. This just seems common sense and such a wonderful way to manage a system. Do you see a
00:00:50.860possibility for anything like that ever happening in Canada?
00:00:54.240Yes, I mean, it's a little bit similar to what I was just talking about, what Alberta's doing
00:00:58.500and Quebec, where the government, if you think about it, they've taken ideology out of health
00:01:05.740care because most patients don't care if you're getting surgery in a private, a non-profit or
00:01:12.980government facility. You don't care if the nurse who's helping out with the surgery, if she's in
00:01:17.280imagine that no one cares about any of that stuff if you're a patient you want the surgery done
00:01:22.800right that's probably your top concern you don't want to wait a long time for it either right so
00:01:28.560you want to get a good good uh service or fast amount of time and when you're walking out of the
00:01:35.600surgical room or whatever you don't want to face a big deal i think these are the three things that
00:01:40.560comedians are much concerned about now that's kind of how they approach it in japan right it doesn't
00:01:45.120matter if it's a non-profit or for-profit they'll fund the money follows the patient
00:01:49.200patient decides which facility works best with them so with alberta shifting to this model where
00:01:55.040they are funding uh services there's nothing stopping them from saying well yeah you could
00:02:00.400get that service done and apply it whatever whatever so we'll see how all upward ultimately
00:02:07.520rolls things out but uh it once you start to change how you're funding healthcare it makes
00:02:13.680it a lot easier to start taking ideology out of healthcare and really putting patients right at