Western Standard - May 03, 2023


Why the sacred cow of Canadian healthcare must be slain


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

200.25821

Word Count

879

Sentence Count

50

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Healthcare in Canada is a mess, and it s time to fix it. We ve been trained for decades to believe we have the best healthcare system on the planet, and the only alternative system is the American one. That s utter bunk.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The story is the same across the entire country. Every province in Canada has greatly increased
00:00:05.080 health spending in the last five years, yet every province in Canada is facing an overwhelmed
00:00:10.260 short-staffed healthcare system. People are dying while waiting for specialized treatment or
00:00:14.740 diagnostics. Family doctors are nearly impossible to find. Ambulances and emergency services can't
00:00:19.900 keep up with the demand, and hospital emergency rooms are constantly overwhelmed. It doesn't
00:00:24.360 matter which party's in power. We've got different parties in government all across the country. The
00:00:27.940 issues are the same. So if money isn't the answer, and the party in power isn't the answer,
00:00:33.080 then the problem obviously has to be with the system. Any politician questioning Canada's
00:00:38.020 sacred healthcare system, though, is committing a form of blasphemy. Unions, pundits, and academics
00:00:43.680 will pour from the woodworks and condemn the offender for daring to question the perfection
00:00:48.080 of the Canadian system if they do. Eager legacy media outlets, of course, will jump into the mix
00:00:52.920 and feed the fires with dire images of people suffering for lack of care in the United States
00:00:57.860 and they'll interview somebody from south of the border who's going to offer a sob story on how
00:01:01.800 they lost their retirement and their home due to medical bills from an emergency hemorrhoid surgery
00:01:06.920 or something like that. The politicians who set things off will then duck his or her head,
00:01:12.620 you know, and head for cover and won't bring the subject up again, and nothing changes.
00:01:16.680 It has to stop. Canadians have to stop falling for the fear-mongering from the defenders of the
00:01:22.000 status quo. Liberal and NDP politicians have accused conservatives of wanting to dismantle the
00:01:27.620 universal healthcare system since it was created. Yet not once has a conservative government done
00:01:32.200 anything to threaten the universality of the system. Well, many have had majority mandates where
00:01:37.600 they could have done so at any time. I remember, well, with Ralph Klein, they were always saying he was
00:01:41.240 going to privatize it all. It never happened. So if it's hollow fear-mongering from the left,
00:01:45.960 so why do they do it? Well, it's because it works every bloody time. Canadians have been trained for
00:01:50.700 decades to believe we have the best healthcare system on the planet, and the only alternative
00:01:55.060 system is the American one. That's an utter bunk. Canada's system is among one of the worst of
00:02:00.780 universal health systems in the world when it comes to bang for the buck. I mean, there's great
00:02:04.460 professionals within it, but the system's a mess. And there's dozens of other systems in the world
00:02:08.680 besides the American one. We need to have frank discussions on the system and must look at
00:02:13.220 models that are outperforming ours. There's many of them in Europe and Asia that are providing
00:02:17.560 universal care while spending less than we do and without having to ration provision nearly as much
00:02:22.680 as we do. So what's the catch, though? Well, they allow more private provision of care. Now remember,
00:02:29.200 universal coverage. So, I mean, everybody gets covered. Nobody gets turned away. Nobody has to pay out
00:02:33.740 a pocket. But it's not a monopoly any longer. Monopoly systems, they always screw the consumer.
00:02:39.820 And in Canada, we're living under a healthcare provision monopoly. Lack of competition has
00:02:44.220 stunted innovation, allowed a massive bloated bureaucracy to grow, and has empowered unions
00:02:48.980 to the point where internal reforms are nearly impossible to achieve. The care is too centralized
00:02:54.020 and hospital-centric, and they're bursting at the seams. But if you try to take services out of a
00:02:58.520 hospital setting, you're going to raise the ire of the unions who rely quite well on those big
00:03:03.200 union in hospital environments. In Alberta, the NDP are raising the specter of privatized healthcare
00:03:08.100 in the election. They're running commercials showing a person reaching into their wallet for
00:03:11.780 a credit card while checking in at a clinic. And this tactic is standard from the left, and it's
00:03:16.260 unsurprising. What's infuriating, though, is that it works. Mistrust is being fostered in Premier
00:03:21.920 Smith, and many people are saying things like, well, I don't like the NDP, but I can't let the UCP
00:03:25.940 dismantle the healthcare system. How long are we going to allow the healthcare system to deteriorate
00:03:31.400 before realizing and admitting it needs reform? How long will we let ourselves be fooled by the
00:03:36.020 fear-mongering of unions that care nothing for patient outcomes and only about maintaining the
00:03:39.780 status quo? Politicians need to find the courage to take on the system, and voters need to find the
00:03:45.300 courage to allow them to do it. Until that happens, though, the system's going to continue its slide to
00:03:50.060 the bottom, no matter how many tax dollars are pumped into it. Canadian Shooting Sports Association,
00:03:55.280 without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago. These guys are on the front
00:04:00.820 lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada,
00:04:07.540 and more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.
00:04:12.680 To become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.
00:04:15.640 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month, or $99 a year for unlimited access.