Western Standard - Healthcare？ It’s the system stupid!

00:00:00.000 Look at the news across Canada. We'll kind of go from west to east. Well, in BCE, cancer patients

00:00:05.040 have been sent to the United States for treatment because the local facilities are overwhelmed.

00:00:10.220 In Alberta, we've got patients languishing in hospital hallways as the capacity in those

00:00:14.860 hospitals right now is reported to be at 150%. In Saskatchewan, patients are being sent to Alberta,

00:00:21.500 ironically, for diagnostic services and some surgeries because their public systems are

00:00:26.220 overwhelmed. In Ontario, hospital emergency departments have been experiencing rotating

00:00:30.880 closures because they have a lack of resources. In Quebec, conventional hospitals are reported to

00:00:37.420 be at 100% capacity while the children's hospitals are at 150% capacity. Parents are being urged to

00:00:43.460 seek home treatment for their sick kids. In Nova Scotia, the wait list for finding a regular family

00:00:49.040 doctor has grown to 150,000 people. I skipped some provinces and didn't go into every healthcare

00:00:55.340 issue. But I think you get the picture. It's the same everywhere. The Fraser Institute recently

00:01:01.920 released its annual report on healthcare waiting times. And the picture is bleak. The median wait

00:01:06.700 time for treatment after having been referred to a specialist by a general practitioner in Canada

00:01:11.120 is climbed to 27.7 weeks. And that's assuming the person managed to find a general practitioner in

00:01:17.180 the first place. How many people are dying waiting to see a specialist right now? How many conditions

00:01:23.160 end up becoming untreatable because people spent too much time waiting for diagnosis or treatment?

00:01:28.240 Canada's healthcare system is failing in every jurisdiction and in every possible way across the

00:01:33.680 country. I mean, there's modern facilities staffed by fantastic professionals in every province, but

00:01:38.640 they just can't keep up with the demand. Waiting lists for every medical service imaginable. They're

00:01:43.400 growing and people are dying while they're waiting for that care. We got opposition parties in every

00:01:48.160 province trying to score political points by blaming the party in power, but they're missing the mark.

00:01:52.700 It doesn't matter if it's NDP, UCP, PC, CAQ, in power, in government, in the province, the situation's

00:01:59.260 the same everywhere. Every province has dramatically increased healthcare spending too, so we can't

00:02:03.900 pretend we aren't spending enough. The federal government, love them or hate them, most of us

00:02:08.360 hate them, they have been increasing healthcare transfers to the provinces. So again, it's not lack

00:02:12.480 of money. Canada's one of the highest spending countries on earth when it comes to healthcare,

00:02:15.920 but it's among the worst when it comes to providing access. So funding isn't the cure,

00:02:20.460 and the different party isn't the cure. The problem has to lie with the system itself. This is the

00:02:25.940 thing that Canadians just never want to admit. Canada's healthcare system is crap. It's hopelessly 1.00

00:02:31.660 broken, and it's become politically taboo to point that out, and politicians are too terrified to take

00:02:36.880 on the healthcare unions and bureaucrats. But it's beyond time they set aside their cowardly instincts

00:02:41.760 and call out this system. Some premiers are trying to do what they can within the system, but it's going to

00:02:46.880 inevitably fail. They're doing patchwork repairs on a blown engine that needs to be torn down and

00:02:51.860 rebuilt. Daniel Smith in Alberta has taken on the local bureaucracy and decentralizing the

00:02:57.600 administration of healthcare services. Her efforts will probably lead to some improvements and some

00:03:01.720 better efficiency, but in the end, Canada's health act is going to overwhelm it, and the system is going 0.97

00:03:06.220 to remain crap. We're in a monopoly situation, government monopoly. And whether it's private or 0.89

00:03:12.020 government, it doesn't matter, the consumer always loses. And citizens, whether you like the term or not, are

00:03:16.780 consumers of healthcare, and they're forced by law to deal with only one provider. The only other nations that 0.99

00:03:22.400 illegalize private healthcare that way are North Korea and Cuba. Speaks volumes, doesn't it? Canada's 0.81

00:03:27.200 legislated healthcare monopoly makes it impossible for provinces to create real and lasting fixes to the

00:03:32.600 system. Unions and bureaucrats fight every effort to make changes while the costs keep climbing, and

00:03:38.420 efficiency keeps dropping. The only way to change this intractable cycle is to scrap or at least

00:03:44.880 seriously reform the federal health act and bring some new options into healthcare. While Canadians

00:03:50.100 constantly list healthcare as one of their top issues of concern, they've been trained to fear any

00:03:54.760 changes to the system aside from injecting more funds. Unions, again, and activists decry any effort

00:03:59.800 to improve the system as Americanization, and it's effective in frightening voters away from supporting

00:04:04.800 change. I tell you, I'd rather have some change than die on a waiting list. Canadians need to be educated.

00:04:09.900 They need to realize there are dozens of universal healthcare systems in the world, and most of them

00:04:14.260 are functioning better than ours. Universal, you still get covered. Politicians need to immediately

00:04:19.540 dismiss the two-dimensional argument that only Canada and the United States have systems in the

00:04:23.500 world. Political leaders need to turn the discussion to European and Asian models that have universal

00:04:28.180 coverage and are outperforming us. And guess what? Private healthcare provision is not a bad thing.

00:04:34.180 And the world provides a plethora of evidence to back that up. Fear-mongering has dominated the

00:04:38.960 narrative and allowed Canada to become so collectively stupid on the issue, citizens won't 0.99

00:04:43.280 even glance at models that are proven to provide better care than the current system. Does it really 0.99

00:04:47.820 matter how you're getting your care, as long as you're getting the care? Things are sure to get

00:04:52.140 worse with the healthcare system in Canada until the system itself is rebuilt. The only question is,

00:04:57.420 how bad are things going to have to get before enough Canadians understand this? And yes,

00:05:01.980 once enough Canadians understand it, perhaps enough of the politicians will start to act on it.

Western Standard - December 21, 2023

Healthcare？ It’s the system stupid!

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript