Rebel News Podcast - June 20, 2019


Canadian health care is collapsing, and the fix might hurt a little


Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

178.29626

Word count

6,549

Sentence count

403

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Stephen Skivington is the President of Polytrain and the author of a new book called This May Hurt a Bit: Reinventing Canada's Healthcare System. In this episode, he talks about why he wrote the book and why he thinks it s a good idea.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.100 Hello Rebels, you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my show, The Gun Show.
00:00:05.520 My guest tonight is Stephen Skivington.
00:00:08.060 He's the author of a new book called This May Hurt a Bit, Reinventing Canada's Healthcare System.
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00:01:11.260 You're listening to a Rebel Media Podcast.
00:01:13.800 Is an aging population and our bad lifestyle choices about to hit Canada's healthcare system 1.00
00:01:19.920 like a tidal wave?
00:01:21.760 How do we get out in front of this mess and improve the quality of care that Canadians receive?
00:01:28.540 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
00:01:43.800 In Canada, it is only politically acceptable to do one thing when addressing the problems
00:01:54.760 within our healthcare system.
00:01:57.360 Throw money at it.
00:01:58.760 After decades and decades and really decades of shoveling Canadian tax dollars into the
00:02:04.480 furnace of the healthcare system just to be burnt up, wait times are as long as they've
00:02:09.280 ever been, and more and more Canadians are still traveling to the United States to get
00:02:14.460 timely, efficient, quality healthcare, despite paying for healthcare through their taxes here
00:02:21.360 at home.
00:02:22.380 The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a
00:02:28.300 different result.
00:02:29.520 And I would suggest how Canadians approach healthcare, at least politically speaking in this country,
00:02:35.580 is absolutely insane.
00:02:36.940 I think it's time to try something different.
00:02:39.280 And so does my guest tonight.
00:02:42.300 Stephen Skivington knows about the problems within Canada's healthcare system firsthand.
00:02:48.720 He experienced them after a major health scare that left him near death.
00:02:53.920 After that wake-up call, he started examining the healthcare system to find solutions and innovations
00:03:00.860 to problems he saw with his own eyes.
00:03:03.700 And then he wrote a book about it.
00:03:05.560 Author Stephen Skivington joins me tonight in an interview we recorded yesterday afternoon.
00:03:12.560 So joining me now from Cobourg, Ontario is Stephen Skivington.
00:03:34.000 He's the president of Polytrain, but he's also the author of a book that came out earlier this year,
00:03:41.200 in February, I suppose.
00:03:43.020 The book is called This May Hurt a Bit, Reinventing Canada's Healthcare System.
00:03:48.500 Hey, Stephen, thanks for joining me.
00:03:50.200 I just read your book.
00:03:51.620 I find it very, very fascinating because I think you're having a conversation that at least the people in power from all political parties,
00:04:02.760 we're all guilty of this, they think we shouldn't be having.
00:04:06.460 But you wrote an entire book that not only details the problems with the Canadian healthcare system, but solutions as well.
00:04:17.340 But you also have an interesting story about why you wrote the book and what prompted writing the book.
00:04:23.600 Well, I've been doing this for probably 24 years, and I think back when I appeared on the old Sun TV with Charles Adler in 2012 was probably what kicked this off.
00:04:35.400 In fact, we didn't even have a name for private parallel health.
00:04:38.920 We didn't call it hybrid healthcare back then, and that video is still available up on YouTube.
00:04:44.600 Now, when I dropped dead about three or four years ago, and I'm in the back of the ambulance, and I said to myself,
00:04:51.440 well, if I make it to the hospital and get through this, I'm going to finally write this book.
00:04:54.940 So that was sort of the genesis of how I came to put all these thoughts together.
00:05:00.540 But we also, I did three sessions with Dr. Min Basseter with his excellent team and simplexity thinking system.
00:05:07.580 And what's really great about this system is it helps you identify what the real problem is and then work out solutions.
00:05:15.980 What we're seeing, and we're seeing it right now in this run-up to the election campaign,
00:05:20.240 we have all these different parties are coming up with the political solution to the political problem.
00:05:26.760 It's not the solution to the actual problem.
00:05:29.500 You know, whether it's pharmacare, whether it's hallway healthcare, in each case,
00:05:35.860 they're doing exactly what Justice Emmett Hall did back in the 60s.
00:05:40.760 He identified the wrong problem.
00:05:43.060 He worked on the problem of how do we keep people from losing their house and going bankrupt when they get sick?
00:05:49.880 And that's a very different problem than how do we create a healthcare system?
00:05:54.540 So what we've ended up with, of course, is an insurance scheme.
00:05:57.160 We don't have a healthcare system.
00:05:59.600 We have an insurance scheme.
00:06:01.180 And I just suggest it's a badly run insurance scheme.
00:06:04.100 And the other problem, too, is it's really a sickness system.
00:06:08.060 It's not a healthcare system.
00:06:10.180 And so throughout the book, what I've tried to do is present the history of how we got into this mess,
00:06:15.580 look at some of the various aspects of healthcare,
00:06:21.240 a little interlude section where I talk about doctors specifically and doctor bashing and all that stuff.
00:06:26.320 Then I look at the law of unintended consequences, five things that governments have done that really have backfired.
00:06:32.940 And then, yes, in the big fix section, which is the biggest part of the book,
00:06:36.200 that's where I come up with my 10 solutions.
00:06:38.920 And again, I'm using an ambassador's simplexity skeleton in which I say, you know,
00:06:44.300 how might we, why would we want to, what's stopping us from for all 10?
00:06:48.620 And so it is a, it is a book that was meant to come out at this time.
00:06:54.460 The goal being I wanted to make healthcare the number one election issue in Canada as we ramp up to October 21st.
00:07:01.880 And, you know, I refer to it when I'm out on social media as I'm looking for people to read the book and join the revolution.
00:07:07.880 And of course, I famously said in an article about two years ago, we need a healthcare Arab Spring in Canada. 0.97
00:07:13.420 And I really do believe we knew we need a revolution because the system belongs to us.
00:07:18.660 We, the people doesn't belong to the politicians or the, or the civil servants or any of those people,
00:07:24.320 but we've actually got to stand up and fight for this.
00:07:26.320 Now, that's a little bit difficult for you because I've been following your social media a little bit
00:07:33.520 and you're being entirely shut out of these healthcare conferences.
00:07:38.920 You've written a book that carefully examines the history and the solutions of how we came to be in this healthcare mess
00:07:46.520 where wait times are getting longer, no matter how much money we throw at the problem.
00:07:50.460 And you've had a personal experience with the healthcare system.
00:07:53.500 So you understand this from the inside and yet you're not being invited to these conferences
00:07:58.780 because you're offering a solution that is different than just keep throwing money at this.
00:08:05.540 Yeah, there's kind of a cottage industry of, um, of these people who are called upon not just to go to these conferences,
00:08:13.400 but also to, you know, sit on committees and be part of royal commissions and all this.
00:08:18.580 And, you know, it's funny, I am, of course, a spin doctor, a political strategist,
00:08:23.400 a campaigner, and we always laugh that, that people only remember who fixes the problem.
00:08:29.680 They don't remember who caused it.
00:08:31.100 And even if the people that fix it are the same people that caused it.
00:08:33.880 So I find it amusing.
00:08:35.760 Two things I find amusing is how many of the people that caused trouble in the,
00:08:39.680 in the Peterson, Bob Ray, and Harris years are still out there now being touted as the great,
00:08:46.100 you know, the great gurus are going to solve all this.
00:08:48.280 And then the other thing is, I am laughing at, well, you know, I'm watching the,
00:08:53.280 the forward government here in Ontario, and I'll certainly watch closely with what happens with Jason Kenney.
00:08:58.380 But I almost wish it was mandatory that they read my book because they're doing the exact same things,
00:09:04.240 making the exact same mistakes, you know, stepping in the exact same cow patties. 0.58
00:09:08.620 And, you know, it's frustrating for me because I lay out in the book what was done, what could have been done.
00:09:16.520 And, you know, one of the great problems that we have is that we have a massive math problem or an accounting problem or an actuarial problem.
00:09:26.880 And it's interesting that, you know, we don't just talk about climate emergency and there may or may not be a climate emergency.
00:09:35.000 There's definitely a health care emergency.
00:09:36.940 And by 2030, we're going to be in huge, huge trouble.
00:09:40.380 And the, the, the, the math problem is this, and it alarms me that the millennials and the iGens aren't paying attention 0.90
00:09:48.860 because they figure out, well, I'm healthy.
00:09:50.440 I don't need to care about health care.
00:09:51.540 One of the studies I talk about in my book, I'm a baby boomer, just turned 60.
00:09:58.900 I'm going to use $4,000 more health care than I pay for with my taxes in my lifetime.
00:10:05.060 The millennials will pay $18,000 more in taxes than health care received.
00:10:11.480 And the iGens will pay $27,000 more in taxes than health care received. 0.90
00:10:17.860 Like, I'm sorry, I don't care who you are.
00:10:20.360 That just, that math doesn't work.
00:10:23.560 And to pretend, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm watching the, the liberals and the NDP,
00:10:28.300 and they're, they're trying to outdo themselves with their election candy bribes,
00:10:31.920 whether it's what we're going to do with pharma care, what we're going to do with health care,
00:10:36.420 we're going to cover this, that, and the other.
00:10:38.260 And I'm, I'm sorry, but, you know, McGinty had that famous line about,
00:10:42.600 there'll come a day where we can only afford the ministry of health,
00:10:47.140 and we still won't be able to afford the ministry of health.
00:10:49.360 And that's exactly what's happening.
00:10:51.260 So unless you're okay with every road being a toll road, every school being a private school,
00:10:59.140 being no money for infrastructure, no money for government programs, autism, whatever,
00:11:03.400 that's what's going to happen.
00:11:04.660 Because 80 to 90% of the budget by 2030 is going to be taken up by health care.
00:11:10.100 That is, and those aren't my numbers, that's just the reality.
00:11:12.580 So the number one solution I come up with, and I deliberately put it first, is stop lying to us.
00:11:19.580 You know, I'm, my campaign is to get the politicians and civil servants and the doctors for Medicare,
00:11:26.220 and this group and that group, and the coalition of whatever, whatever, tell the truth, stop lying.
00:11:32.980 We're never going to have this adult conversation that we need to have right now in this,
00:11:36.640 in the run-up to the election, if we're just going to run around and lie, you know,
00:11:40.840 make believe and pretend and unicorns and rainbows, you know, we have a serious problem.
00:11:46.380 And that doesn't even include the three health care tsunamis I talk about in the book,
00:11:50.760 obesity, diabetes, and dementia, any one of those three, which could wipe out the treasury.
00:11:55.900 We aren't even having that discussion yet.
00:11:58.520 So, I mean, it's just utter madness to run around and pretend that we have the best health care system in the world.
00:12:05.020 We absolutely do not.
00:12:07.200 Well, and, you know, you speak to the dishonesty, and that's one of the things that really irks me
00:12:14.420 about the conversations Canadians have around health care.
00:12:18.500 Through the NDP here in Alberta, they threw more money at health care, and wait times got worse.
00:12:24.320 And then they fearmonger that Jason Kenney is going to come into power and burn down all the hospitals,
00:12:29.600 lay off all the nurses, fire all the doctors, when I suspect he's probably going to do more of the same
00:12:34.660 because it is a political hot potato to address innovating within the system.
00:12:40.360 And it sort of seems like evidence be damned.
00:12:43.800 All you have to do is look right next door in Saskatchewan, where they have, you know,
00:12:48.360 some private innovations happening in their health care system,
00:12:50.940 and they're seeing real, tangible results in their wait times.
00:12:54.900 But that's just not a conversation most provinces can have.
00:12:58.380 And why do you think that is?
00:13:01.320 Well, politicians are motivated by fear.
00:13:04.160 I wrote about this recently.
00:13:05.920 And, you know, we had this discussion about touching the third rail
00:13:10.240 that embracing a parallel private health care system, the hybrid solution,
00:13:15.340 would be touching the third rail, and that would be suicide for any politician.
00:13:18.860 Well, I argue that in order for the trains to run at peak efficiency,
00:13:23.740 you have to touch the third rail.
00:13:25.300 And I would argue that in order for our health care system to operate at peak efficiency,
00:13:29.360 we have to touch the third rail and embrace the hybrid solution.
00:13:33.400 And so the irony is that all the polling I've seen shows that three quarters, 75% of Canadians want choice.
00:13:42.800 They want the hybrid solution.
00:13:44.520 They don't want what is being offered.
00:13:46.720 And yet, and I think in many ways it's because a lot of this is being driven by unions.
00:13:51.860 A lot of these groups are being backed by unions, backed by NDP types.
00:13:57.100 So I find this really obscene.
00:13:59.600 In British Columbia, where Dr. Brian Day is having his charter challenge,
00:14:04.240 the British Columbia government spent $20 million on 20 lawyers in the first six months of that trial.
00:14:15.620 And Brian Day was able to mortgages KMP surgery and raise some money through, you know,
00:14:22.720 private Canadians giving money, raise $2 million for two lawyers.
00:14:26.480 They have since, I understand the number is now $30 million.
00:14:29.220 And by the way, this is not, this is not NDP money.
00:14:32.260 This is not money out of somebody's pocket.
00:14:34.080 This is taxpayer dollars being used to keep people sick and in pain and dying on wait lists.
00:14:40.760 And the even better part is they tried to pass a law that no one would know what the number was.
00:14:46.040 So, of course, I went on social media and told what the number was.
00:14:49.060 I don't care if they want to put me in jail, go for it.
00:14:51.940 But this is a kind of sick, absurd business.
00:14:56.200 And you know what's really funny?
00:14:58.560 People will say one of two things.
00:15:00.940 You want to get rid of the public system and replace it with a private.
00:15:04.400 Well, no one, Brian Day, myself, we've never said anything of this sort.
00:15:08.340 And, of course, the other classic is you want a U.S. style two tiers.
00:15:12.600 You know, we're number 30 in the U.S. is number 36.
00:15:15.800 Why would we want to embrace their system?
00:15:18.800 And then the final one is people say, well, this is just for the rich.
00:15:22.720 This is so the rich can have a second tier.
00:15:24.540 Well, the rich already have a second tier.
00:15:26.040 It's called America.
00:15:27.360 You know, the rich don't need this.
00:15:29.500 The middle class, the baby boomers. 0.99
00:15:31.720 And frankly, we are the ones that are going to end up driving this.
00:15:33.920 There's no doubt because baby boomers aren't going to be waiting these crazy amounts of time for hips and eyes and knees and all this stuff. 0.99
00:15:40.160 They will want choice and they will force it.
00:15:43.780 But the irony is, and I've been waiting to see if maybe Mad Max was going to be the guy.
00:15:47.100 If a politician, a leader, a party would come out and say, we're embracing this.
00:15:52.620 We're going to tell you the truth.
00:15:53.720 We're going to have that adult conversation.
00:15:55.800 And here's reality.
00:15:56.900 And here's why we have to do this.
00:15:58.920 I think they'd win a landslide, frankly.
00:16:01.520 And so it's, you know, you look at at pharmacare.
00:16:05.480 You know, pharmacare is another good.
00:16:06.640 I'm anti-pharmacare.
00:16:07.620 I pay $500 a month out of my own pocket for medicines because of my bad lifestyle choices.
00:16:13.060 And I don't think it's fair that Canadians should have to fund my bad lifestyle choices for all the pills I'm on. 0.59
00:16:19.360 But pharmacare is interesting because instead of stopping and saying, why are people on all these medications?
00:16:26.700 Like instead of actually figuring out what's the real problem here?
00:16:30.920 It's like, again, how do we keep people from going bankrupt?
00:16:34.120 How do we keep people from having to choose between filling the prescription and eating?
00:16:37.820 So we're coming up with solutions that are the wrong solutions that will bankrupt us.
00:16:43.160 We've already seen people, frankly, people are on way too many meds as it is.
00:16:47.340 And we've seen the opioid crisis.
00:16:49.180 But again, it's election candy.
00:16:51.000 Oh, I'm getting free pharmacare.
00:16:53.380 Well, no, you're not.
00:16:54.280 You're going to be paying.
00:16:55.840 I mean, it's just it's absurd.
00:16:57.980 It's obscene.
00:16:59.140 And this is what they get away with.
00:17:01.020 And, you know, one of the great reasons politicians get away with is because our wonderful doctors and nurses and other health care providers.
00:17:08.280 Unlike normal people have been sticking their fingers in the hole in the dike for the last 20 years, trying to keep the whole thing from collapsing. 0.99
00:17:14.800 A normal person would let it collapse 20 years ago.
00:17:17.280 And we could have had this debate 20 years ago.
00:17:19.840 Now we're really up against it because we've only, as I say, got 10 or 11 years before the whole thing goes in the tank.
00:17:26.500 And had our health care professionals not tried to keep the politicians, you know, from sinking, keep the boat from sinking.
00:17:36.020 And so the politicians say, hey, it's great.
00:17:37.880 It's working.
00:17:38.500 Nothing to see here.
00:17:39.380 And so this is why we end up with what we end up with, you know, throwing money at the political problem instead of the real problem.
00:17:47.160 And, you know, hallway health care is a classic because you hear a lot about this in Ontario.
00:17:51.660 And I'm sure you'll hear this everywhere.
00:17:52.900 Yeah.
00:17:53.000 So we've seen this for years.
00:17:55.400 But the latest one is Doug Ford's government is going to throw a lot of money at hospitals to open more rooms in the hospitals.
00:18:02.060 Well, that's solving the political problem.
00:18:04.120 That's not solving the problem.
00:18:05.320 They did a great study.
00:18:06.220 They refer to it as bed blockers.
00:18:08.680 I hate that term.
00:18:09.420 It's actually an alternative level of care patients is what we're talking.
00:18:13.700 9% of the so-called bed blockers were causing 40% of the bed blocking because they were suffering from dementia, obesity, and other problems.
00:18:24.140 So our homes, our nursing homes, et cetera, are not set up to deal with dementia.
00:18:29.780 They are not set up to deal.
00:18:30.980 They don't have the machinery for dealing with obese patients.
00:18:33.600 And, of course, the personal support workers blow at their backs and knees. 0.96
00:18:37.160 That's the problem you need to solve.
00:18:39.220 And we should be increasing our long-term care facilities, building more of those, building more of those rooms.
00:18:46.540 The problem is do not open more hospital rooms and then take the people out of the hallway and shove them in there.
00:18:52.840 That's just solving the political problem.
00:18:54.760 So, again, my book goes in great detail with all of this.
00:18:58.160 And I know what's fascinating is that people that work in the health care system or have had encounters or their families had encounters, read the book and say, wow, you really nailed it.
00:19:09.560 People who had no encounters with their health care system who think we have the best system in the world.
00:19:14.200 I think it was Christine Blatchford said people who have never used our system say it's the best in the world.
00:19:18.520 So, they read it and they go, wow, I had no idea about any of this stuff.
00:19:23.020 Wow, I thought it was actually, it would be there for me when I need it.
00:19:26.000 And now I see it's not going to be, you know, and that's, those are basically the two, the two main reactions I get.
00:19:32.000 Yeah, you know, your book does quite a bit of myth busting.
00:19:36.100 Those kind of common myths that we hear about the Canadian health care system that are just sort of floating around the ethos of the American media, and in particular, the American left-wing media.
00:19:50.500 I wrote some of them down because I think a lot of Canadians are confused by this too.
00:19:57.480 The idea that the Canadian system has to be publicly funded under the Canada Health Care, or the Canada Health Act, isn't true.
00:20:07.780 It just needs to be publicly administered, right?
00:20:10.480 Correct.
00:20:11.980 Oh, there are lots of, you know, it's funny, even I who have been doing this for 24 years, learned things in researching.
00:20:18.380 I had no idea the Canada Health Act was a finance bill.
00:20:21.140 It's not, it's got nothing to do with health care.
00:20:22.400 They slapped in, Tommy Douglas actually had in his version, eight principles, and they chose to use five of them.
00:20:29.820 They left off responsible, effective, and I believe efficient were the other three.
00:20:38.620 And of course, my big bugaboo is they left off quality.
00:20:42.460 And so what I say is, how can you not have quality as one of the five?
00:20:45.940 If I had died on the waiting list with my heart trouble, that would have been just as good as if I had a successful solution.
00:20:54.080 In fact, actually, one of the docs said, actually, it would have been better if you died, because then you would have ended up costing the system even less money, trying to keep you alive.
00:21:03.700 I liken it to this.
00:21:05.620 And maybe, you know, and again, I'm not a policy wonk.
00:21:08.880 I'm not a professor.
00:21:09.720 I'm just like one of you, if one of you had been dropped in the jungle and then came back 25 years later and reported on what they saw, like a war correspondent, that's how I see myself.
00:21:22.020 And so if you have a severe problem, a heart or whatever it is, you're in a car accident, it's like being at the Indy 500 and pulling into the pit.
00:21:33.940 And this wonderful crew works on you and saves your life and does whatever has to be done.
00:21:38.880 That's our health care system at its best.
00:21:41.460 But if you don't have a life threatening problem, if you need like a knee or hip or whatever it might be, then it's like when you're in a big city and it snows, big blizzard, right?
00:21:52.440 And they plow the main streets.
00:21:53.900 But if you happen to live on a side street, you don't see a plow for three or four days.
00:21:58.300 That's what our health care system is.
00:22:00.100 And so until you get in there and encounter it, and I have all these people who say, well, I had a heart attack and they saved my life.
00:22:05.420 And absolutely.
00:22:06.760 But how about the waiting list?
00:22:09.140 And some of these waiting lists are absurd.
00:22:11.360 A waiting list, four and a half years to see a neurologist to determine what is causing your headaches.
00:22:17.960 Well, what is causing your headaches could be a tumor.
00:22:21.100 And so Bernie Sanders, that's what you want to imitate.
00:22:24.940 You know, get Dr. Daniel Martin going down there and pushing, no, we love the candidate system.
00:22:29.200 It's the best.
00:22:30.120 You should imitate it for your Medicare for all act.
00:22:32.740 And when Bernie came to Canada in the book, I liken it to going around door to door with Dr.
00:22:36.700 Martin and Kathleen Wynne at Halloween.
00:22:40.220 It wasn't your Halloween getting little candies.
00:22:42.680 You know, they had everything set up.
00:22:44.340 So, oh, look at this.
00:22:45.400 This works perfectly.
00:22:46.460 No waiting lists and all this stuff.
00:22:47.700 So, you know, my great concern is that the lies have now become so entrenched and people have so wrapped themselves in the flag, the patriotic flag of the Canada Health Act.
00:23:02.760 You know, people, you're wrapping yourself in a finance bill that was meant to ban extra billing and copayments and that sort of thing.
00:23:10.700 That was the only reason that was brought out.
00:23:13.420 And to somehow think that, you know, 30 plus years later, 35 years later, it's not time to do something about that.
00:23:20.200 Or even in the case of the Medicare Act from 1968, you know, 50 years later.
00:23:26.740 How can you possibly think, you know, that things haven't dramatically changed in that time and that those two pieces of legislation are still relevant?
00:23:35.480 Yeah, I mean, again, you go back to the lies that just become repeated so often that they become truth.
00:23:44.740 One of them that I wrote down again is that Tommy Douglas was the father of modern health care.
00:23:50.780 That's really not the case.
00:23:51.900 But it's become so entrenched in the Canadian psyche that he was voted the greatest Canadian ever based on a half truth about his past.
00:24:01.700 And then the other one that you had in your book was that the Canada Health Act ensures one tier of health care for everybody.
00:24:10.020 That's not true.
00:24:10.820 You suggest that there's probably 10 or 15 tiers of health care.
00:24:15.400 Oh, yeah.
00:24:15.800 There's the workers' compensation tier.
00:24:18.000 There's the RCMP tier, the friends of friends tier, the friends of doctors tier, the athletes tier.
00:24:24.700 And what's most serve some is the prisoners tier.
00:24:28.700 Dr. Day has pointed this out in this charter challenge.
00:24:31.700 Can Canadians possibly think it's a good idea that prisoners get better health care and quicker access and drugs paid for and so on and so forth in a way that we don't?
00:24:42.160 Like, that is total absurdity.
00:24:45.260 You know, I could make the argument that, okay, it's all right to have a workers' compensation tier because you want to get them back to work as fast as possible.
00:24:53.120 And then, you know, you're not paying government money, taxpayer dollars.
00:24:57.320 But even that, you know, this game of pretend, this let's pretend, you know, this absolutely has to stop.
00:25:05.560 One of the things, and, you know, you're back to your earlier point about the other side is definitely trying to muzzle me.
00:25:12.560 There's no doubt about it.
00:25:13.460 And I fully expected that they're doing the same with Dr. Day and others.
00:25:17.600 But one of the ways we get around that is I'm trying to create an institute of health care reform and innovation.
00:25:24.360 And I don't see it as a bricks and mortar thing.
00:25:26.360 I'm seeing it as, at the moment, be a virtual thing.
00:25:28.520 So I'm trying to find investors and other people and ordinary Canadians to put about, I'm trying to, I need about $10,000 a month to do this because I want to go around giving speeches and making appearances.
00:25:41.920 Obviously, I'm doing that on whatever level I can in kind of the southern Ontario at the moment.
00:25:47.260 And I absolutely want to get into the states and do this, certainly in the run-up to next year's election, as we see with both Bernie Sanders and the Medicare for All Act, all that kind of stuff.
00:25:58.560 You know, I'm doing what I can to try and get Americans to, you know, click on the link and read the book.
00:26:03.340 But I need people that believe in what I'm saying and who really want to have this choice.
00:26:08.760 You know, the slogan, I say, fund it or free it.
00:26:11.180 And that's really, you know, they can't fund it, they won't fund it, so they really should free it.
00:26:15.440 And we should have this choice.
00:26:17.240 So if there's anyone out there who can get in touch with me who wants to get behind this, I'm absolutely looking for like-minded people because we need to find a platform,
00:26:26.380 whether it's a better website, whether it's a, you know, I sort of look at Jordan Peterson as the model for this.
00:26:33.580 He started kind of slowly too and then started broadcasting and making public appearances and the whole thing just exploded.
00:26:40.940 I view this as the same thing because it's one of those topics where, you know, it's easy for politicians, you know, right now we've got politicians, you're talking about the economy or tax cuts or the environment or this, that and the other.
00:26:55.120 And nobody is talking about health care and they're sort of being dragged now.
00:27:00.220 Okay, so the liberals say, well, here's our pharma care plan, you'll see it in eight years.
00:27:04.840 And then the NDP says, well, we've got a pharma care plan that we're putting out now and we're going to cover boom, boom, boom and boom.
00:27:11.500 And, you know, somebody else is going to come out with something else.
00:27:15.180 Andrew Scheer at least is being sensible enough to not say, here's our candy.
00:27:19.600 You know, he's trying to be reasonable.
00:27:21.220 And, of course, the voters, if the voters don't want to still get lied to all the time, stop eating the candy.
00:27:28.360 You know, it's bad for you.
00:27:29.860 It makes your tummy hurt and it rots your teeth.
00:27:32.060 Stop taking these bribes of election goodies and stand up.
00:27:37.240 You know, what I really wanted to do is to get as many Canadians as possible to read my book.
00:27:41.600 So when the candidates come to the door and they say, well, I'm for Medicare, I'm for one tier.
00:27:45.860 You know, if you're saying you're for the status quo, then what you're really saying is you're in favor of U.S. style two tier health care, because that's what the status quo will lead to.
00:27:56.260 If you want to make sure that we don't end up there, then look at my 10 solutions, all of which are very doable and embrace.
00:28:03.520 And by the way, I'm really excited about this.
00:28:05.740 I was invited by Concordia University on September 27th.
00:28:09.540 And anybody can sign up for this, by the way.
00:28:11.300 It's a one day course.
00:28:12.320 We're going to do a workshop on my big fix, 10 solutions.
00:28:16.860 And the people who come are going to be able to work on one or two of those solutions all day and figure out, for example, how would you take Canada's 14 health ministries and roll them into one super ministry at the federal level?
00:28:30.520 How would you set it up so that we could have medical tourism where people come here instead of Canadians going elsewhere?
00:28:38.000 And so on and so forth.
00:28:39.160 So that's going to be quite a quite an event.
00:28:42.240 And you can find it on the web quite easily.
00:28:44.020 Just Concordia University, you know, Stephen Skington, this may have heard of it, whatever.
00:28:48.480 It's September 27th.
00:28:50.160 Do do show up for that if you can make it, because I think that's going to be a very exciting day.
00:28:55.020 We're going to invite the media, make sure.
00:28:56.800 And the beauty of that is it's either just before or just after the Ritz dropped.
00:29:00.240 So that may be my best chance to make this a big election issue.
00:29:04.000 I'm hoping so.
00:29:04.920 Before I let you go, I want to ask you two questions.
00:29:10.280 The second one is easy.
00:29:12.020 Maybe the first one is easy, too.
00:29:14.320 What does your ideal Canadian health care system look like?
00:29:18.520 Well, first of all, I don't think we should just imitate some other country system.
00:29:26.620 I mentioned before we're 30 and the Americans are 36.
00:29:30.340 We shouldn't go and imitate number one or two, you know, whether it's, you know, France or Germany or Switzerland or Sweden.
00:29:40.420 I mean, I think we have enough brains to build a made in Canada health care system and that we should do that.
00:29:47.740 We should certainly look at what other people have done.
00:29:50.140 But our situation is somewhat unique here.
00:29:53.160 And I talk about as you as you go and read the history of how we got to where we are.
00:29:57.160 I think that our health care system, you know, I make 10 suggestions.
00:30:03.320 I would ideally like to see all 10 of those things happen.
00:30:06.040 I think quality, as I said, should be a part of the Canada Health Act if we're going to actually keep the Canada Health Act.
00:30:11.760 But, again, using Dr. Min Bassett or Simplexity System, if we identify the real problem and then work towards solving the real problem, we can do this.
00:30:23.200 You know, we could have done this 50 years ago, but, you know, we keep identifying the wrong problem.
00:30:29.340 And it's not the political problem that we want to solve.
00:30:31.620 It's the actual how do you fix this?
00:30:34.440 How do you create a health care system that isn't just an insurance scheme?
00:30:39.360 That's our challenge.
00:30:40.180 And my second question for you is, how do people find the book?
00:30:45.840 How do they get in contact with you if they want to support your efforts going forward?
00:30:50.540 How do we impart some more of this valuable information to the rest of the Canadian public?
00:30:58.200 It's in libraries actually around the world.
00:31:00.720 I'm quite surprised at where this book has ended up.
00:31:04.500 Every Indigo Chapters across Canada has a minimum of three copies.
00:31:08.700 I am starting in Southern Ontario doing book signings and events.
00:31:14.060 We've got actually a big event coming up on the 24th of June at the Toronto, Metro Toronto Library, the big research library downtown.
00:31:22.920 I believe it's six o'clock Monday, June 24th.
00:31:26.180 You can go to Amazon.
00:31:27.760 It's been the number one bestseller in several categories on Amazon.
00:31:32.480 It's available as a trade paperback and as a Kindle e-book.
00:31:38.840 I laughingly call myself the Don Cherry of health care.
00:31:42.060 I thought it would have been fun to have Don Cherry do the actual audio book if there was going to be one.
00:31:45.700 And as far as getting in touch with me, sskivington at bell.net is my email.
00:31:53.920 So it's s-s-k-y-v-i-n-g-t-o-n at b-e-l-l dot n-e-t. 1.00
00:32:01.660 I'm on Twitter at sskivington.
00:32:04.040 I'm on Facebook.
00:32:05.600 I think that's Stephen Skivington.
00:32:08.440 Believe me, if you go to Google, there's all kinds of I'm everywhere.
00:32:11.660 There are media that I've done or people attacking me, which is always my favorite.
00:32:16.520 It's not hard to find me.
00:32:18.520 And, of course, every Saturday I'm on News Talk 1010 in Toronto from 1 to 1.30 on Ted Walsh's show,
00:32:26.300 in which I talk about sort of the political events of the day.
00:32:29.820 And that's, you know, just Google in News Talk 1010.
00:32:34.520 You'll find me there.
00:32:35.240 So that's always, that's sort of my version of Coach's Corner.
00:32:38.140 And it's like people keep saying, oh, I want more skivington.
00:32:41.820 I said, no, trust me, my wife, my wife will say 17 minutes a week.
00:32:45.480 A week is more than enough skivington.
00:32:47.360 She's got me 24 hours a day.
00:32:48.820 That's more than anybody should have to put up with.
00:32:51.640 Well, I should introduce your wife to my husband.
00:32:55.380 There you go.
00:32:56.640 He feels the same way.
00:32:58.360 Well, Stephen, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:33:00.740 So hopefully we can have you back on, maybe after the summer, after, or in the lead up
00:33:07.700 to the election, even, as more of the candy announcements are made.
00:33:13.180 And, yeah, I want to thank you for being bold and brave enough to have these tough conversations
00:33:19.400 about health care, because a lot of people are not.
00:33:22.800 Well, I always, always laugh that I wish someone would hire me to teach journalism, because
00:33:29.580 everyone thinks it's, I'm so cool, because I break all the rules, and they don't realize
00:33:33.000 I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing, which is why I'm breaking all the rules.
00:33:36.140 But, you know, just two things, with all the articles I published, they were always like
00:33:42.440 little short stories.
00:33:44.020 And this book is like a novel, you know, people, when they read this, and I always love those
00:33:48.000 novels where a guy comes into a bar and starts telling his life story to a stranger.
00:33:51.500 So in this case, we're not coming into a bar, we're doing the most Canadian thing, going
00:33:55.340 for a walk in the woods.
00:33:56.920 And on that journey, I tell basically the story of Medicare, and all of the things that
00:34:02.220 you know, people probably don't know.
00:34:04.320 But it's actually a very funny book, it's full of war stories.
00:34:06.980 I've, of course, been the doctor's lobbyist for many, many years.
00:34:10.300 And there's all kinds of things in there that will make you laugh.
00:34:12.580 And that, you know, I talk about what it's like to be on, following a piece of legislation
00:34:17.980 on a committee, on a committee tour, and so on and so forth.
00:34:21.900 So I think people will actually find it very enjoyable and, and funny.
00:34:25.820 And, but it makes a lot of serious points.
00:34:28.220 And I hope people will read it.
00:34:31.360 I, I read, I read my copy, I read it again in the lead up to this interview.
00:34:37.280 And yeah, it's a, it's, I don't want to say easy read, because it's pretty informative,
00:34:43.640 lots of information, but you're imparting information to people in a way that you don't
00:34:49.120 even realize how smart you're getting till you're done.
00:34:51.740 So that was great.
00:34:54.100 Steve, I want to thank you so much for sorry, Stephen, I shouldn't shorten your name on you.
00:34:59.700 I want to thank you so much for coming on this show.
00:35:02.080 And I want to thank you for being so generous with your time for me today.
00:35:05.800 And again, I hope we can have you back on.
00:35:08.240 Oh, I'd love to.
00:35:08.960 It'd be my pleasure.
00:35:09.540 Thank you.
00:35:10.460 Thank you.
00:35:23.700 Somewhere along the way, the people who are going to be using our healthcare system more
00:35:28.640 than anybody else, the boomers need to find a way to convince the younger people and millennials
00:35:34.860 to help them transform the healthcare system.
00:35:39.140 The users and then the people who are paying for it all have to find a way to come together
00:35:44.480 and put pressure on their politicians to try something new and innovative.
00:35:50.500 These two demographics are not known for working together on common causes, but they are going 1.00
00:35:56.080 to have to be the ones to create the so-called parade for healthcare change so that some politician 0.93
00:36:03.460 can jump in front of it and claim to lead it all.
00:36:06.920 Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
00:36:09.380 Thank you so much for tuning in.
00:36:11.280 As always, I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.
00:36:15.580 And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.
00:36:26.080 The crafting nerve has never really had too much to think.
00:36:43.080 Thank you.