Western Standard - Why the sacred cow of Canadian healthcare must be slain

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 0.55

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 0.97

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,

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Western Standard - May 03, 2023

Why the sacred cow of Canadian healthcare must be slain

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