00:00:00.000And now we're sitting here and, and, you know, people are still saying, we don't have enough doctors. We have too many wait times. So, you know, we're still having those same challenges, right? Which, you know, you look at it. So we dug into this months ago, you know, just to see what was the real story on this one, because we were very interested.
00:00:23.060Get busy living or get busy dying. Morning, Liam. How you doing, man?
00:00:27.280Paul great to chat with you so interesting week on the healthcare front right so you had Michael
00:00:33.080Hurley so who is the head of the unions the hospital unions came out and he's asking for
00:00:39.720five billion dollars so he's saying there's a shortfall um you know he mentioned there's a
00:00:46.120280 million dollar shortfall in operating costs for Ontario hospitals coming out of 2025 and it's
00:00:54.920growing dramatically. And now we're into this conversation again, which I thought we were
00:01:00.180through between the Ontario government, which is basically saying we have 60 hospital projects.
00:01:09.800We've brought in more doctors, more nurses. We've put capital into this thing. We have a budget
00:01:17.400increase coming up of 4% for next year, 26, 27, that we put on the books. And they're saying it's
00:01:24.140not going to be enough and we have to come up with five more billion dollars for our hospital
00:01:28.300healthcare sector yeah i i struggle to understand how there can be a short fall like you know you're
00:01:35.160talking about five billion added but then even according to the canadian institute for health
00:01:40.500information 2025 total spending was projected to reach approximately 399 billion dollars it's like
00:01:48.900How do you have nearly a $400 billion budget and you're saying we're running out here?
00:02:06.040That's why I wanted to have you on the show because I picked up this article.
00:02:08.900I thought it was a great article written and it really took a look at how much Canadians pay out of their income for healthcare.
00:02:16.620so you know I'm a stats guy so I jonesed on it right away I was like man I like this article
00:02:22.840because it shocked me having lived in the U.S. I told you the story I lived in the U.S. you know
00:02:28.800so I've been accustomed to U.S. health care I've been accustomed to paying for insurance
00:02:33.760private health care now I was lucky enough this was years ago right because I've been back to
00:02:39.780Canada I'm born in Canada I've been back here quite a long time um but when I was here I was
00:02:45.340paying crazy low amounts for health care like i was single so i was paying a couple thousand dollars
00:02:51.820a year and i was getting pretty much cadillac health care right i wasn't using it i was a lot
00:02:57.660younger quite frankly so you know i touch wood i don't have any health problems but yeah i really
00:03:03.740wasn't using it but i wasn't paying much so quite frankly it wasn't a big line item in my capital
00:03:07.980expenditures um but but you know take us through because i'm astonished now what we're paying
00:03:14.140and how much it matches up now with what i'm hearing americans are paying right yeah so the
00:03:20.540uh there's a study by the fraser institute which uh estimates that canadian families depending on
00:03:26.940the type and number uh within them but pay between six thousand uh roughly six thousand five hundred
00:03:33.260to twenty one or twenty one thousand dollars annually so i mean that's just massive on its
00:03:39.260own and you look at how that has increased over time uh the public uh spending from 1997 to 2026
00:03:51.740the public health care insurance went up by 279 so it is just we're funneling more and more into
00:03:59.180this uh into this system and seemingly like i mean yeah when you look at what they're talking about
00:04:05.020when it's not even not even enough as is doesn't doesn't make sense too much to me there. But
00:04:11.740then you look at how those costs are split amongst the different families. So 10% of Canadian
00:04:19.500families with the lowest incomes will pay an average of $637. Families in the middle income
00:04:28.220group will pay about eight thousand six hundred dollars and the families in the top ten percent
00:04:34.140will pay around sixty six thousand dollars oh so uh yeah and yeah you're obviously looking at people
00:04:40.860uh the average incomes of 450k and over for that you know sixty six thousand dollar bracket but
00:04:48.140this is now a main expense no you know if you're especially if you're in the middle and in top top
00:04:54.060income brackets right and we looked at so when we did the budget show i i was astounded that this
00:04:59.900line item made up roughly a third of our total expenditures from a canadian perspective so
00:05:05.740when you're citing those numbers um you know you earn income of course that we all earn income
00:05:11.740hopefully all of us earn income we pay taxes a portion of that taxes goes as transfer payments
00:05:16.700to health care to the provinces uh whether it be provincially or federally and so that goes over to
00:05:22.860hospitals healthcare centers doctors that gets that gets transmitted to them and that's the
00:05:29.100portion that makes up that balance right that's how it gets calculated yeah yeah no yeah yeah it's
00:05:35.100a staggering number for sure and then two actually one of the one of the funny things i guess well
00:05:39.660it's not too funny depending on how you look at it but the one of the payments that rivals healthcare
00:05:44.860spending now is interest payments on our debt oh yeah so we you know take on more and more debt to
00:05:49.500fund these systems and then the that that interest just accrues right so you know it's interesting
00:05:54.700Liam because you know you look at this number now and it's a big number you know what was the total
00:06:00.140again it was like 300 and 400 billion 399 yeah so it's it's like a it's like a massive number in
00:06:07.580our you know as we mentioned and now we're sitting here and and you know people are still saying we
00:06:12.940don't have enough doctors we have too many wait times so you know we're still having those same
00:06:17.740challenges right which you know you look at it so we dug into this months ago you know just to see
00:06:24.220what was uh the real story on this one because we were very interested and i just wanted to you know
00:06:29.900remind or review this with you again because i i found it really interesting the first time
00:06:34.620we did this show so in canada we have roughly a hundred thousand physicians those are that's
00:06:41.740our doctor pool right so um and we have 241 for positions for a hundred thousand so you know and
00:06:50.540this is the i think the beef that we find all the time when we look at it seven percent of them are
00:06:55.660rural and 93 are urban wow that's a big split yeah yeah well then that's always the problem
00:07:01.740you know getting people you know i just was uh doing a meeting yesterday and then someone from
00:07:08.620scarborough was complaining about the fact that there's no doctors even in scarborough now wow
00:07:13.500it's hard to get a doctor is right downtown well they don't want to live there so they don't go
00:07:17.260there right so to get doctors to go out is is very tough um 54 male 40 46 female um 57 uh
00:07:29.420uh specialists um you know and surgical uh you know it's changing but but you know you look at
00:07:39.020this and so we went through and we said okay where do we look for health care expenditures
00:07:44.000per capita around the world you know and i thought okay we have to be at the top here or close
00:07:51.240we are we're in the top 10 uh you know when we go back and forth between 10 11 and 12
00:07:57.580we bump around but you know the u.s is number one at per capita at 14 800 um we're at 7 301
00:08:07.620okay we're half of the u.s but we're side by side uh almost equivalent to australia france ireland
00:08:15.780sweden um and of course the one my pet peeve i gotta say it on the show sorry guys
00:08:21.080Norway which is $9,993 a person which if we would have made the right oil decision
00:08:29.860back in the 1980s and we would have had the fund the wealth fund that they had we would be above0.98
00:08:38.620Norway so those baby boomers that are sitting listening to the show hey guys I'm not trying1.00
00:08:44.020to be difficult but you know you got to take some responsibility that was a bad decision right0.99
00:08:49.400because now we're in the point where we're saying there's a deficit right and is this you know this
00:08:56.040is a political to and fro we see all the time right this is a like one of these crazy to and
00:09:01.000froze that we're going to go through and you know the problem is the politics or the the the morphing
00:09:07.400back and forth between the unions and the government it's a little bit like okay you know
00:09:12.920we'll support you but we need you to put another five billion into this and then the government
00:09:17.240comes back it says we put enough into it and this goes on you know we saw it in quebec we've seen it
00:09:22.040in bc we're now seeing it in ontario and this goes back and forth the problem is that faction0.99
00:09:29.080of baby boomers that that you know group that large group of people who are aging now you know
00:09:36.280and becoming into retirement age they're valuing this even more right so so the unions are saying
00:09:43.160hey you know if you want us to really get on this and put this out there you know you better put
00:09:47.480more money into it and pay us more money so it's a you know there's a lot of political to and froing
00:09:52.600here going on and unfortunately it's getting in the way of the right solution so and you know and
00:09:57.800i i've said this on other shows you know the problem is um and i'm gonna jump around a little
00:10:03.560at the end here but you know if you look at places like quebec they tried to come up with a solution
00:10:09.320on this so uh dubai which is uh which was the minister dubai who actually had to resign was
00:10:16.360the health minister in quebec and then uh lego premier lego basically that was the the straw
00:10:22.840that broke the campbell's back in their careers right because as soon as they said listen we have
00:10:27.240two million people without health care we got to do something here the doctors turned and quite
00:10:33.240frankly they were gone wow yeah so this is a big political faction and it really does still align but
00:10:39.320but now we're at a very interesting kind of intersection point right because here we are
00:10:46.280the stats aren't really playing out so you know and i know they're saying there's a shortage but
00:10:52.440you look at as i mentioned to you the expenditure per capita right pretty much what everyone else
00:10:58.440is spending right so it's pretty comparative we're not low you look at um the payments to physicians
00:11:07.240right and then you look at the average salary of physicians so you know and i did this with
00:11:12.120jim lang and he was he was like arguing back and forth you know we don't have enough doctors we
00:11:17.000don't have enough doctors i said jim i said let's go through the math okay they make roughly 400
00:11:23.240000 a year so you know if you look at it a family medical met a gp makes about 324 medical specialists
00:11:30.600make about 406 and surgical specialists on average make about 556 000. wow yeah good incomes yeah
00:11:38.280well you know and i listen i'm all for educators and doctors to make good money because i think
00:11:43.720they're important in our society for growth and productivity right we have to be healthy we have
00:11:49.400to be educated i i'm all for those things if it if the benchmarks and kpis are showing we're making
00:11:56.680it work right so let's pay people because it it's working right let's not pay people just to pay
00:12:02.360people there's no business survives that way not government or anything but so here we are and you
00:12:08.440and you look so let's take the average 400 if a doctor makes 400 000 a year so we kind of started
00:12:14.440messing around with it before the show they work say 220 days a year so if you take off weekends
00:12:21.320you take off a couple of weeks vacation roughly you're about 220 days um then only 70 percent of
00:12:30.440their income comes from patient patient visits so we said okay then patient visits they make
00:12:36.840on a patient visit somewhere between 40 and 60 dollars so i took the high end right i said 60
00:12:43.480dollars and then therefore um over a 21 hour period for the 70 of the revenue they make
00:12:51.960they have to see 21 patients a day divided by eight hours is about 2.6 patients an hour
00:12:59.800so there yeah right coming to conveyor belt at that point yeah yeah but you know it's it
00:13:04.840uh if you look at it and uh i'm sure there's longer and shorter patient visits you know
00:13:09.720person comes in for a cold person has you know a medical condition that's really bad you're going
00:13:15.160to take an hour right you're going to take 10 minutes so i think on average you know but
00:13:20.360definitely achievable benchmarks because i think the argument that we don't then i went and took a
00:13:25.160look at the the world population review and i tried to figure out where we were from a doctor
00:13:30.120perspective so we roughly have per hundred thousand about uh i think it worked out about
00:13:36.60028 doctors and but on the nurse side we're at the top or top quartile oh wow we have 112 nurses per
00:13:44.760hundred thousand so right we have a lot of people supporting those doctors more than other way more
00:13:50.520than those i mentioned those other countries that we were in comparison you know the france
00:13:54.840other ones we're way higher from that perspective so we have a lot of support in our medical system
00:14:00.760which i think is great i think that's the argument that's starting to be made now right
00:14:05.800the argument that's starting to be made is we need to figure out a way to make this work right
00:14:10.280and so well and yeah i completely agree with you when it comes to say something like health care
00:14:15.800and education being extremely important but even when you look at how we approach health care as
00:14:23.880a society so much of it is like putting band-aids on bullet wounds after they've already already
00:14:30.760happened. And so, yeah, we increase spending. We don't really have the doctor shortage as you're
00:14:37.940pointing out, or at least comparatively to other countries. But I think it's just that we're
00:14:43.840becoming unhealthy at a rate that you can't keep up with. And I think that's where the real issue
00:14:51.840lies in terms of even if you just look at what most people are getting treated for, a lot of
00:14:57.380are lifestyle issues and so it's not just you know random uh random accidents which obviously you
00:15:03.780know you get into a car accident you don't want somebody all of a sudden having crazy debt or
00:15:08.660anything like that but then the fact that this system is also equally burdened by people that
00:15:16.660are not taking care of their own individual health along the way i think the larger conversation
00:15:25.460always kind of misses that aspect like what are we as as individuals and citizens responsible for
00:15:31.460our health for as well because we were so quick to offload it onto these systems like these systems
00:15:35.940are responsible for for our health but uh along the way we don't really take take into account
00:15:41.700any of that but but i mean even too when you consider what we're paying going back to say the
00:15:47.540the 400 billion dollar number like to put that into perspective against our gdp which is just over
00:15:54.260two trillion probably looking at somewhere around roughly 20 of our gdp is is spent on health care
00:16:00.980we've got the doctors but then you look at something like the wait lists that people have
00:16:06.900for surgeries which are probably a lot more uh important in in need urgency but those those
00:16:15.140wait lists are are getting crazy like uh average now 28.6 weeks to see a specialist um compared to
00:16:24.0201993 where it would have been 9.3 weeks so well it's interesting you know I don't know you're
00:16:30.200probably following it because now you know in the U.S. right now you know and I you know I'll bring
00:16:35.000it up please don't cringe because I know when I say U.S. the people go terrorists but you know
00:16:41.060it's interesting the midterms are coming up and you're looking at the Democrats and you're looking
00:16:44.800at the what they're the Socialist Democrats now they're calling them so you know the very left
00:16:50.320democrats and they're actually asking for our health care system right and it's funny because
00:16:56.320uh on more american shows you're now seeing them quote our stats you know canadians wait two months
00:17:04.080for surgery they may wait three months they line up at the hospital so now the republicans
00:17:09.840are actually using the art these stats that you have and they're actually from uh the medical
00:17:16.080associations across canada canada medical association health and medical association
00:17:21.440they're actually quoting those stats and so they're taking them right out and they're saying
00:17:24.800if you guys want this system right you're going to end up waiting this long so you can have this
00:17:30.080system if you want to go with the left-wing socialist democrats but the problem is you're
00:17:34.080going to actually have all these wait times right and i think that's the where the real conversation
00:17:40.560needs to end up is not you know do we have completely publicly subsidized health care as
00:17:46.880we do in canada or do we you know completely privatize it obviously america has tried certain
00:17:52.400things like medicaid and so on but um it's you look at places that do rank at the in the top of
00:17:59.760the world places like yeah say the uh norway or also even to uh netherlands i think is really high
00:18:07.120up on that list most of them are running split split systems because it doesn't make sense like
00:18:12.480if if you have the money to pay for a surgery let's say in in you're a canadian while you're
00:18:20.480looking at it going oh i'm not going to wait 28 weeks half a year to to even just see somebody
00:18:26.320let alone get booked and have the actual surgery right um that person's probably going to go
00:18:32.160somewhere like america and give them their money and that's what they're saying they're saying you
00:18:36.480know we have a we have an onslaught of canadians coming to america for surgeries they can't get on
00:18:41.200a timely basis right right now it never used to be like let's let's kind of put this into perspective
00:18:47.840because we're you know again i i tell this story the other day on another show about governments
00:18:52.560being this slow moving boat or vessel you know that basically makes decisions and slowly turns
00:18:59.200that boat or you know is coming around but the tide is moving away from them right and in this
00:19:05.200case you know i think we all got really uptight i i know we did um when immigration after covid
00:19:13.120just ramped up and you know our systems like healthcare struggled to meet them and now that's
00:19:19.280kind of uh changing that's adapting and you know people are leaving and there's a net you know
00:19:26.480movement uh outside of canada so i think we have to be cautious you know we uh throw the baby out
00:19:34.000with the bath water you know we got to be careful that right frankly we have a system it did work at
00:19:39.760some point so you know when i was when i was younger we had a fairly you know decent system
00:19:46.240for canadians you never heard much people were very healthy and happy about health care um you
00:19:52.560know they'd go to the doctor if they had a specialist appointment they go to a specialist
00:19:56.400appointment it was really never we didn't see it much in the news right this is a more recent thing
00:20:02.720so you know and i looked at uh when i did this show on quebec so it was interesting because i
00:20:08.160mentioned christian dubai and premier legault getting all this heat and it really you know
00:20:13.920they were caught between a little bit of a rock and a hard place and i think no one really talked
00:20:19.200about it that much um because there was so much pressure from the doctors and so much pressure
00:20:24.720but they had a quarter of their population uh without a doctor right so they had two million
00:20:32.080people um you know and in ontario had only 83 but we weren't saying much but they were starting to
00:20:41.600feel the pressure of the population saying listen in order to get healthcare these 2 million people
00:20:46.960had to go to emergency rooms and they had to sit there for hours and hours and hours they weren't
00:20:52.880getting any medical treatment they couldn't even get referrals to go from the emergency rooms
00:20:58.720they were waiting 20 and 24 hours just to get seen and then literally months to get uh
00:21:08.240or even years to get specialist appointment right in quebec so it it really did get out of hand and
00:21:14.400uh i think you know the when i was looking at it there was a fraser institute report that said
00:21:20.160the medium wait time for a specialist in quebec was 29 weeks wow yeah uh so you know they they
00:21:26.960finally said you know we got to do something and i think that's where we're at so i think
00:21:31.440i'm going to come back to it again with you liam i understand the desire to increase budgets
00:21:37.600you know i get that you know people want to be paid more we have inflation we have food inflation
00:21:42.640we have housing inflation we have young people entering we have nurses and doctors that you know
00:21:47.680want to buy homes want to have lives wanna and they're seeing some of their spending power road
00:21:53.680so they want a salary increase i understand that i understand what the union is saying i
00:21:59.200i get all that but the challenge right now is that the economic uh key indicators
00:22:08.800need the system to be right-sized first so i think you know i think there's a there's a
00:22:15.280opportunity for that to happen so i don't want to come off saying i'm against people getting raises
00:22:19.920because i'm not but i think there's an opportunity but i think you have to go back and i'm not saying
00:22:25.760that bill 2 in quebec is the solution because it didn't work definitely right so because the
00:22:32.000doctors hated it um but i think there were things in that bill and i still maintain that till today
00:22:39.440that i think you know are worth taking a look at and and so if you can fix that system or our system
00:22:48.240then i think you then start to figure out uh parameters with which to compensate people right
00:22:54.480right and i think i think one thing that has to be kept in mind when it comes to any public spending
00:23:01.520conversation though is because we are already running deficits so and we have been uh for
00:23:08.080years on years now and so any new spending by default is going to be debt driven right there's
00:23:15.520two options for that either you sell bonds or you print more money uh and so either by selling bonds
00:23:22.960you pay more taxes in the future or if you print more money you cause the cost of living to go up
00:23:29.520again through inflation right by devaluing the dollar and so we look to these levers to
00:23:36.160give us short-term alleviation of a problem but then it actually compounds the problem another
00:23:42.000year or two from right down down the road and then you're going to have again so you know you could
00:23:47.520debt finance more to make sure that doctors are getting paid more but then a year or two when we
00:23:52.800feel the ripple effects of that they're going to sit here and go the cost of living went up again
00:23:57.120and it's like yeah because it goes up with every every every debt spend um but to what what you
00:24:02.880noticed noted on the the immigration topic that i think is interesting as well is it's not just the
00:24:09.760the number of people coming into the country that overwhelms the system but that we are doing that
00:24:18.960in order to fund the system and so this becomes kind of a double-edged sword as well where0.97
00:24:23.740because if you look at you know seniors aged 65 plus account for 47 percent of health care spending
00:24:30.980and our birth rates since the 1970s have collapsed in Canada and so what's been happening is I mean
00:24:38.420on any social program front whether it's health care or any other one for that matter is you need
00:24:44.660a wide base of taxpayers paying for a small tip of the pyramid for people that you know retirees
00:24:51.780and stuff that need it but if that population inverses then you've got a small number of people
00:24:58.820paying for a wide top the pyramid pyramid flips and so there's there's about i'd say five to ten
00:25:05.780different major uh major issues that are driving this uh this both well from many different angles
00:25:14.180the wait times the costs and so on uh and yeah so to to try to balance all of those at once is uh
00:25:22.420is is a tightrope for sure oh yeah well not an easy type rope but but you know it's interesting
00:25:28.020and you know again i'm solution based so you know not trying to any party because i understand the
00:25:33.700goals and initiatives of each of them but i think you know and and it was interesting so
00:25:40.020you know don't cringe because i'm going to go through bill two for a minute because i think
00:25:43.540you know bill two in quebec had some interesting ideas right and what it did is it actually
00:25:49.540changed the compensation for doctors right and it changed the compensation by having kind of a fixed
00:25:58.020hourly fee um so a fee for service right now uh they get a fee per visit right for 70 of their
00:26:06.100income and they have other sources of income whether it be research or other projects work
00:26:10.900they have most doctors right so now they they had a fixed fee per hour they had basically a
00:26:20.500hourly fee per visit um and then they had a bonus component so based on you know the
00:26:27.620the number of people they saw on the performance and the outcomes so they had an uh let's call it
00:26:32.660two quantitative uh measures to compensate and one qualitative you know and and so wasn't very
00:26:40.420well liked i get it right because it was too much of a shift but the one thing it did and i think
00:26:45.460that's where it did have some interesting it actually took people and patients and put them
00:26:51.940into category categories based on their illness and assign them to doctor pools okay and the
00:26:58.180groups so i thought the brilliance in that whole thing it wasn't the payment scheme it was basically
00:27:05.380the reallocation of people so they did uh green yellow orange and red red being major illnesses
00:27:12.660high needs orange being moderate conditions yellow being minor ailments and green meaning healthy
00:27:19.380so you know how you pick your gp right now you're healthy so quite frankly you'd go into a green
00:27:25.540category and there'd be so many green doctors in your region to deal with your issues and they
00:27:30.580would be a support group and they would be compensated by uh hourly so they would get an
00:27:38.180hourly fee 8 to 12 hours a day they know they make money so if you never go because you have fewer
00:27:43.700visits that doctor doesn't have to be concerned about making sure he has a diverse patient list
00:27:50.340of people who are really ill not so ill you know they're not in that because you think about it
00:27:54.980from a doctor perspective they're in this weird situation where they have to kind of you know you
00:27:59.860can't get too many healthy people in your as your patients and i don't mean that in a bad way because
00:28:05.780then they're never going to come see you you're never going to get referrals you're never going
00:28:09.540to you know do any get any research grants or the drug companies aren't going to work with you on
00:28:15.620any projects you know because quite frankly all your patients are healthy right so you need kind
00:28:21.060of that uh wide range of patients to actually increase your compensation to hit it that's the
00:28:27.780current kind of methodology right or this in this case they were allocating you and you weren't at
00:28:34.340risk or as much at risk from seeing a decline in your income uh didn't like it i you know doctors
00:28:43.460didn't like it i was so so on it quite frankly i thought it needed more work but you know what it
00:28:48.260was the start of something that i think quite frankly as from across canada we need to sit down
00:28:54.660and look at right because we we're going to have you hit it right on the head we're going to have
00:28:58.900this big aging population that's you know growing like this um you know new canadians you know
00:29:05.860whether they want to even stay that's their decision you know i just read an article about
00:29:10.580new canadians who are arriving and immigrating here they're not even having kids so quite frankly
00:29:16.100it doesn't appear that that birth rate with that generation that's coming from a new canadian
00:29:21.060perspective is having so our one uh woman per per child that current canadians have is translating
00:29:30.100to new canadian right so it's not it's not picking up right so i don't know if that's going to be the
00:29:35.940ultimate answer i think it's a short-term solution but if you're not going to have an increase in
00:29:40.820you know a worker the worker class to pay those bills that's a whole thing that we have to figure
00:29:46.660out but then quite frankly we're also going to at the same time as we're trying to figure that out
00:29:51.780we got to deal with a very big population that is aging you know into the 65 plus category yeah yeah
00:29:59.300i i completely agree because this is unprecedented when you look at the the population inversion0.73
00:30:06.740essentially right uh this isn't something that our health care system has dealt with and as you're
00:30:12.580seeing on the on the political front what also adds further stress is that if something isn't
00:30:20.340let's say marketable on a election campaign season then you know this might be something
00:30:26.660that we need to start considering now for 10 15 20 years out but if it's not going to get you
00:30:31.860elected next year nothing's going to end up happening um but you know what what would your
00:30:37.140thoughts be on say instead of uh something like one public system that then gets split into red
00:30:45.540yellow and green but something more like a let's say like the the netherlands where you've got a
00:30:50.900public and private split and then you've got the yellow and greens that kind of hey the the public
00:30:56.340health care system is going to be here for the people that absolutely need it they can't afford
00:31:01.700it uh and maybe they're in that red zone but if you're in the the yellow and green uh you know
00:31:08.820if these are thought of as more kind of what you could consider i guess uh um personal choices
00:31:14.900they're not they're not like this has to this surgery or this medication or this illness needs
00:31:20.500to needs to get to you now then that goes into the the private system so that we can alleviate some
00:31:26.020of the burden off of the public i'm good with that okay one condition or maybe two conditions okay
00:31:32.900so you know and i added this no no and you know i brought up norway uh earlier on the show
00:31:40.020you know to me it's kind of this whole ball of wax that you now need to consider based on
00:31:44.900you know you hit it right on the head based where we are on our debt load in the country right now
00:31:49.060and our interest costs and our carrying costs i think what you have to do now and i know in
00:31:54.020september the prime minister is starting to talk about bringing investment companies in to buy
00:31:58.980minerals and goods in canada i think you have to turn that into a solution that has a healthcare
00:32:04.740solution in it so that's fine right if if we're gonna do that and we're gonna get uh investment
00:32:12.500from around the world and more investment in canada on our minerals and our resources and
00:32:17.780everything else i think that canadians need to directly partake in that to offset the cost of
00:32:23.220what's going to happen so i think we're kind of at that tsn turning point where we haven't talked
00:32:28.020about it and i know you know we were okay and i hit on the 1980s when we had petro canada and
00:32:33.780we gave it up uh you know alberta went bananas wanted it all privatized you know now you know
00:32:40.740the biggest wealth fund in the world is norway and we have you know 12 billion dollars sitting
00:32:45.620in an alberta wealth fund which is like a pittance compared to the trillion dollars that are sitting
00:32:51.540in the norway wealth fund that get used to subsidize health care right so i think it's
00:32:56.740not too late we still have an abundant of resources whether it be minerals or oil or whatever it is
00:33:03.620you know water we have a ton of things that we can capitalize on but i think it's now time to
00:33:07.940kind of turn it into a ball of wax and say okay we have an aging population we haven't so so much of
00:33:14.260this investment needs to be allocated for this at the same time we have to restructure how we
00:33:21.220do it because if we're having an aging population we have to figure out how to get them health care
00:33:26.260right so we can't just leave this broad swatch of physicians and referrals we know that's not
00:33:31.220working right so we do need to go restructure the way we do health care and how we treat people
00:33:37.220because the population composition is so significantly changing we just can't do it
00:33:42.740this way anymore it's not feasible and anyone who tells you that we can keep going on this path with
00:33:48.500the same treatment methodologies we're doing is totally out of it like they are they just are not
00:33:54.820on the ground they're not going to doctors they're not seeing the implications of their actions right
00:34:00.500they're they got their head in the sand so now if we change that and i i'm not saying quebec's
00:34:05.780perfect so don't go bananas again all of you but i think there is a modification on the color zones
00:34:11.780that we need to look at the funding model has to come from a source now if i don't think you know
00:34:19.140to your point you have privatization of some of those services yeah i think you can right so there
00:34:26.020are people in that but then i think you have to look at some tax relief or a tax write-up for my
00:34:31.700so if i decide i want to go and i don't i want to use private health care well then i should get a
00:34:36.820tax credit of x amount for it right because i've taken the burden off i've i've used my own money
00:34:42.340to take the burden off canadians i've paid my same income you said you know high income earners pay
00:34:47.94066 000 for two kids and two adults on average for if you're over 450 right 450 000 a year
00:34:56.500so those people quite frankly that's great they pay a you know a large amount of their tax
00:35:01.620base goes towards health care so now if they go and get on top of that private health care give
00:35:07.460them a credit right and then allow more clinics to open up and more of that to happen so that'll
00:35:12.820take some of the burden off i don't think there's a i don't think that's a bad thing but at the same
00:35:16.980time to your point you got to be doing something with resources in our economy to actually fund it
00:35:23.780so you have to do a shift somewhere here because it can't it can't stay static in my mind right
00:35:29.140well and and i think that's the the biggest issue because if we continue on the trajectory as you're
00:35:34.820saying where the idea is to either just yeah inflate uh or cost of living goes up through
00:35:41.940uh money printing or uh future taxes through debt financing then you are looking at a scenario where
00:35:49.620those people that are paying 66 000 a year into the healthcare system they have the mobility to
00:35:57.060up and leave if they if they just see that okay well i'm just gonna continue being on the hook
00:36:02.340for this thing and that is so much of the messaging of well we just need to uh tax the
00:36:06.900affluent more well if the affluent end up leaving then where does that leave us with funding this
00:36:12.340this system but i think you you hit an excellent point there as well is that we need to find some
00:36:18.660sort of uh first i think it should be happening culturally through you know how much money we
00:36:24.980spend on uh publicly on media campaigns and pr which you could essentially just call propaganda
00:36:31.140it's like why aren't we having mass propaganda campaigns about personal health um to to alleviate
00:36:36.980the system as well but then also give people a tax incentive maybe have certain diagnostic tests
00:36:44.100whether that be through blood work or even fitness levels of each of each generation where hey if you
00:36:50.900can let's say me as a 32 year old it's obviously going to be much more uh much more demanding than
00:36:57.620somebody that's 60 or 65 but if i can hit certain health markers that show i'm not in need of this
00:37:04.100health care system bar you know obviously a an accident or something of that nature
00:37:10.020but i don't have these lifestyle issues then yeah like incentivize people through tax breaks for
00:37:14.900that hey you can come here and do uh you know 50 50 push-ups and uh and run and run five kilometers
00:37:21.540and under this time then you know you get get a obviously that's a little uh half-baked idea but
00:37:27.700still something along those lines no no i don't you listen i don't think this you're on to something
00:37:32.820and you know uh if you know and i grew up in another era right so and you know you didn't see
00:37:39.700a lot of obese people right so i grew up you know i'm older mentioned to you you know and uh
00:37:46.020just turned 60 so but i did grow up in an era where there weren't a lot of obese people
00:37:51.460not like today and there weren't as many people not even close to as many people with diabetes
00:37:56.500and some of these crazy you know especially i look at the stats night now one in every eight
00:38:01.300person in america has diabetes one in every 10 person in canada has diabetes right so and i look
00:38:07.860at and i think to myself okay we must you know whatever we're doing to people's health right now
00:38:12.660you know whether you know they're depressed whether they're eating too much whether they're
00:38:16.580down you know we are we are just you know making these people struggle and we're not incentivizing
00:38:23.860them to change the behavior right right but it's even worse because we're promoting it in a lot of
00:38:29.700ways if you look at say the public messaging over the last couple years you get say the big body
00:38:35.300positivity movements and all of this and or even the push to classify things like diabetes and
00:38:42.980weight and all of this is like purely genetic obviously people have certain predispositions
00:38:47.700to other things uh you know i know people that it's really hard for them to gain weight right
00:38:52.260uh but uh there's zero conversation about what people should be doing in their personal lives
00:38:59.860in fact it's it's the opposite there's a uh there's a campaign to say don't don't even worry
00:39:05.140about it and we'll pick up the tab yeah we'll pick up the tab and where other countries quite
00:39:09.540frankly you know uh employers are penalized if someone is overweight working for them really
00:39:17.700yeah that's japan i think okay yeah i said there and i was just reading about it recently but
00:39:22.820but you know and don't quote me on that one but it was you know it's i might have the wrong country
00:39:27.140but but you know there are other countries where they try to incentivize people to get their
00:39:31.460employees to be fit right and so but there are ways to do this now and we know the outcome to it
00:39:37.620you know and those are just another again you know those are the as i mentioned you know as
00:39:42.100if you revamp the healthcare system so if you go in and you actually whether you color code it
00:39:47.060whether you actually um put people in categories based on you know uh if you're in the green
00:39:53.300category like you and there's so many scans at certain ages so you have to can you have to do
00:39:58.660your uh the following scans and tests every year to stay in the green else you go and there's a
00:40:04.660tax incentive to you to stay in the green right therefore okay liam you got to do the four things
00:40:09.860this year if your tests come out good you stay in the green okay i want that to happen so therefore
00:40:14.820i'm going to eat better i'm not going to drink as much i'm going to maybe run a little more right
00:40:19.140i'm going to exercise i know you run a lot but uh but you know what i mean like so therefore
00:40:23.860gives me an incentive to do it so you know you're you're incentivizing not penalizing and so people
00:40:29.940will change their behaviors therefore they'll go into a category and stay healthier longer
00:40:34.420which reduce our health costs all those things make sense right now we're not doing any of them
00:40:39.700none of them none of them none of them and here's the here's the crazy thing and you know and for
00:40:44.100those ai you know geniuses out there i'm going to throw it to you you know listen you guys tell me
00:40:50.900all the great things you can do you can do this you can do that you can do this change the behavior
00:40:56.340behaviors of people and come up with a health care system that makes sense that incentivize
00:41:00.740people to stay healthier longer i think you'd be a wonderful ai you know you know i think you'd be
00:41:07.300what a program we would have right and what a good use of some system and intelligence to figure out
00:41:14.100hey before before we leave this and there's a and i know you know i always bring this up but i'm
00:41:18.260gonna i want to talk to you about it before we complete the show you got to clean up uh
00:41:27.380the basically the honor system and billing i know i know we don't listen this is the one
00:41:32.820canadians do not want to talk about right we don't want to believe that you know
00:41:38.820every once in a while we get these stories we got a lot of them coming out of covert these runaway
00:41:43.140physicians who build lots of money in 2025 the auditor general of ontario came out with
00:41:50.900just a scathing report and we'll put it on our site i'm going to put this up i'm going to make
00:41:56.580sure if you want to read it because i i do encourage you to go through and read it but
00:42:00.660basically you know there were ophthalmologists who actually build 6.7 million dollars in fees
00:42:09.220for the year and they said that they were doing 233 233 patient visits a day
00:42:19.140that doesn't math no come on come on right we have uh diagnostic radiology uh physicians who are
00:42:28.340doing uh the top one made 4.3 million um the average is 1.4 million for 90 of them and one
00:42:37.540of them build 4.3 million saying they were seeing 930 people a day right that's tough over eight
00:42:47.220hours right you gotta really be yeah now we had a family physician that actually built 1.7 when the
00:42:54.020average one as i mentioned made 383 000 saying they did 600 visits a day wow right so and we
00:43:03.780have you know this report and and it was very well done it just went and said listen we don't have
00:43:09.140any odd audit procedures really they've been eliminated uh it's a basically an honor system
00:43:15.380there's no ability to recoup the funds if they're taken from any of the doctors and physicians we
00:43:21.380got to fix the system because you know as people hear this and it comes out more and more if it's
00:43:26.740not changed then the faith in the system will will you know be significantly altered people will not
00:43:32.820uh feel comfortable anymore and you do hear this now like as i go and i move around these stories
00:43:38.260are like urban legends now you know there's there's people all you know uh there was a time
00:43:45.140when people go well you know that he's a doctor so you know he makes great money but now people
00:43:49.380are like i know he's a doctor but you know he you know he's maybe living too high right now and
00:43:57.460because quite frankly some of these billings are insane right and there's no capping on it and i
00:44:03.220think that's one of the things we got to give public assurance on we got to go back and make
00:44:08.100sure that the public is comfortable knowing that the billing system that is happening
00:44:14.580is being monitored is being audited and is being fair right because i think when you lose fairness
00:44:20.020in society there's a whole bunch of um degeneration you know that happens over time and faith and if
00:44:28.020you lose faith in your professionals and your physicians because you're hearing these things
00:44:33.140then well what's next right you then you're right you where do you find your health care because
00:44:38.740then you know i can't go to him because you know he's taking money so how you know he's giving me
00:44:45.380a prescription can i trust the prescription right can i trust the vaccine can i trust because i need
00:44:51.300it or because you get to care exactly so there's all that you know i call it tin foil hat discussion
00:44:56.500and i think we're seeing that increasing i know in the states it's crazy right now right the amount
00:45:00.740of scuttlebutt online about what people say about physicians and drugs and everything else
00:45:05.780is off the hook right so and part of that is because we don't have a system in place
00:45:10.980to audit that and when i see that when that came out and you know well done on them like they
00:45:15.280really did uh again go through the read because you know you're gonna you know you have you have
00:45:22.180cases in in here where you'll see uh specialists saying that they actually worked 365 days a year
00:45:31.680Right. Well, and I think one of the reasons that you don't see much pushback against things like that is because the benefits or let's say the profits that are being made from fraudulent activity are so highly concentrated into a few people, whereas the cost of that fraudulent activity is dispersed amongst many.
00:46:00.720So you've got a few people that are highly incentivized to push for these systems to keep operating and nobody that is being pinched hard enough to really care about the fact that there's fraudulent behavior in them.
00:46:15.760And I think, you know, as you're talking about, it's not even that it's OK, there's one sector like doctors are, you know, a bunch of people that are just trying to rip everyone off or bankers are this or, you know, entrepreneurs are that or the public sector is this.
00:46:29.820It's like what you end up getting is a few, a small percentage of people that will take advantage of any industry.
00:46:37.980And actually, even if you look back at the, you know, when I was, this is a little bit aside, but I think the principle remains true when it comes to doctor fraudulent activity is back during the safe supply era in, I believe it was the 1980s of Sweden.
00:46:55.720they looked at the fact that once they opened that up and it went rampant out of control just
00:47:03.120like we saw in Canada when they did audits they found it was like a select handful of people that
00:47:09.000were just like you're talking about with the billing most of that fraudulent activity was
00:47:14.220condensed to like one one to five percent of the doctors and so it's a small portion of percentage
00:47:19.900of people that are taking massive advantage of of those loopholes yeah and those are the ones we
00:47:25.820got to cut off right because when you read those reports that does again it hurts credibility it
00:47:30.540hurts fairness and and those are the ones we got to get out of the system quickly you got to do
00:47:34.940something more than ask them what they want to pay back exactly yeah exactly well that's the you
00:47:39.820know that's the that's creating the mechanisms where you know you have penalties for actions
00:47:44.940right and that doesn't exist today and unfortunately um a lot of people know it they they use the
00:47:50.940system uh for their benefit and here we are so liam thank you let's uh get busy living
00:47:57.580and uh thanks for taking the time beautiful talk to you soon
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