Healthcareļ¼ Itās the system stupid!
Episode Stats
Summary
Healthcare in Canada is broken, and people are dying while they wait to see a doctor. Canada's healthcare system is one of the worst in the world when it comes to access and access to care, and it's time to fix it.
Transcript
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Look at the news across Canada. We'll kind of go from west to east. Well, in BCE, cancer patients
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have been sent to the United States for treatment because the local facilities are overwhelmed.
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In Alberta, we've got patients languishing in hospital hallways as the capacity in those
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hospitals right now is reported to be at 150%. In Saskatchewan, patients are being sent to Alberta,
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ironically, for diagnostic services and some surgeries because their public systems are
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overwhelmed. In Ontario, hospital emergency departments have been experiencing rotating
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closures because they have a lack of resources. In Quebec, conventional hospitals are reported to
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be at 100% capacity while the children's hospitals are at 150% capacity. Parents are being urged to
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seek home treatment for their sick kids. In Nova Scotia, the wait list for finding a regular family
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doctor has grown to 150,000 people. I skipped some provinces and didn't go into every healthcare
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issue. But I think you get the picture. It's the same everywhere. The Fraser Institute recently
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released its annual report on healthcare waiting times. And the picture is bleak. The median wait
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time for treatment after having been referred to a specialist by a general practitioner in Canada
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is climbed to 27.7 weeks. And that's assuming the person managed to find a general practitioner in
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the first place. How many people are dying waiting to see a specialist right now? How many conditions
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end up becoming untreatable because people spent too much time waiting for diagnosis or treatment?
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Canada's healthcare system is failing in every jurisdiction and in every possible way across the
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country. I mean, there's modern facilities staffed by fantastic professionals in every province, but
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they just can't keep up with the demand. Waiting lists for every medical service imaginable. They're
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growing and people are dying while they're waiting for that care. We got opposition parties in every
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province trying to score political points by blaming the party in power, but they're missing the mark.
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It doesn't matter if it's NDP, UCP, PC, CAQ, in power, in government, in the province, the situation's
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the same everywhere. Every province has dramatically increased healthcare spending too, so we can't
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pretend we aren't spending enough. The federal government, love them or hate them, most of us
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hate them, they have been increasing healthcare transfers to the provinces. So again, it's not lack
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of money. Canada's one of the highest spending countries on earth when it comes to healthcare,
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but it's among the worst when it comes to providing access. So funding isn't the cure,
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and the different party isn't the cure. The problem has to lie with the system itself. This is the
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thing that Canadians just never want to admit. Canada's healthcare system is crap. It's hopelessly
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broken, and it's become politically taboo to point that out, and politicians are too terrified to take
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on the healthcare unions and bureaucrats. But it's beyond time they set aside their cowardly instincts
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and call out this system. Some premiers are trying to do what they can within the system, but it's going to
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inevitably fail. They're doing patchwork repairs on a blown engine that needs to be torn down and
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rebuilt. Daniel Smith in Alberta has taken on the local bureaucracy and decentralizing the
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administration of healthcare services. Her efforts will probably lead to some improvements and some
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better efficiency, but in the end, Canada's health act is going to overwhelm it, and the system is going
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to remain crap. We're in a monopoly situation, government monopoly. And whether it's private or
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government, it doesn't matter, the consumer always loses. And citizens, whether you like the term or not, are
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consumers of healthcare, and they're forced by law to deal with only one provider. The only other nations that
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illegalize private healthcare that way are North Korea and Cuba. Speaks volumes, doesn't it? Canada's
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legislated healthcare monopoly makes it impossible for provinces to create real and lasting fixes to the
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system. Unions and bureaucrats fight every effort to make changes while the costs keep climbing, and
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efficiency keeps dropping. The only way to change this intractable cycle is to scrap or at least
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seriously reform the federal health act and bring some new options into healthcare. While Canadians
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constantly list healthcare as one of their top issues of concern, they've been trained to fear any
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changes to the system aside from injecting more funds. Unions, again, and activists decry any effort
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to improve the system as Americanization, and it's effective in frightening voters away from supporting
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change. I tell you, I'd rather have some change than die on a waiting list. Canadians need to be educated.
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They need to realize there are dozens of universal healthcare systems in the world, and most of them
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are functioning better than ours. Universal, you still get covered. Politicians need to immediately
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dismiss the two-dimensional argument that only Canada and the United States have systems in the
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world. Political leaders need to turn the discussion to European and Asian models that have universal
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coverage and are outperforming us. And guess what? Private healthcare provision is not a bad thing.
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And the world provides a plethora of evidence to back that up. Fear-mongering has dominated the
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narrative and allowed Canada to become so collectively stupid on the issue, citizens won't
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even glance at models that are proven to provide better care than the current system. Does it really
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matter how you're getting your care, as long as you're getting the care? Things are sure to get
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worse with the healthcare system in Canada until the system itself is rebuilt. The only question is,
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how bad are things going to have to get before enough Canadians understand this? And yes,
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once enough Canadians understand it, perhaps enough of the politicians will start to act on it.