Head of Canadian Medical Association wants to smash state healthcare for U.S. "profit" models

[villager]

<snip>

Clearly, in Day's view, there is a lot of money to be made by wrecking Canada's single-payer public health care system. Day estimates $40 billion a year in additional health care spending in Canada.

Why open a private surgical facility? To quote Larry Teuber, founding partner of Black Hills Surgery Center addressing the American Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting in 2000, "Profit, profit, profit."

Slashed taxes

But wait a minute. Day also claims -- on the same California web site -- that Canada's current level of health care spending is unsustainable: "Health care is approaching 50 per cent of all spending in the provinces," he writes.

This claim is misleading because tax cuts have reduced government revenue and so inevitably public health care spending is rising as a percentage of provincial budgets, but not rising as a percentage of the economy and therefore is sustainable.

So why would someone concerned about rising health care costs give the impression to an American audience that driving up Canada's health care spending to U.S. levels -- Canada's health care spending as a percentage of GDP is 55 percent that of the US -- is a good thing? And why would he deny to the Canadian public that he is advocating the adoption of a U.S.-style system? After all, he stated, "No doctor in Canada I know wants a U.S. system."

<snip>

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/07/19/BrianDay/

[robcon]

1. Sounds like an excellent idea to me.

Privatized medicine should be allowed to compete with public medicine, IMO.

[villager]

2. "Canadians should not be fooled by Day's double-speak."

<snip>

Canadians should not be fooled by Day's double-speak. He is bringing the U.S. model of investor-owned health care to Canada, while convincing people that this is the only way to remedy wait times and other problems in our health care system. Every informed health care analyst has reached the opposite conclusion: we have some serious problems in Canada with our health care system but every one of these problems would be aggravated rather than cured if we were to move towards an American for-profit system of health care.

<snip>

[mainer]

5. Two-tier system seems to work in the UK

business people I know there can opt to supplement their NHS coverage with private coverage, so they have the option of going to a private consultant if they want to. But it does require an extra premium which isn't expensive at all.

I guess the analogy is that some people are happy with Sears but others demand Nordstrom's.

[Exiled in America]

9. I think a two tiered system is the only system that would work in the US.

[kenny blankenship]

3. Yeah but it's 40 billion dollars of pure PROFIT!

Profit is good remember? That's forty billion that the current system is just squandering. Money left on the table.
Wouldn't you want to say, "Our system may not be the greatest at covering everyone anymore, but at least it turns a profit"? Isn't that something to tell the next generation of Canadians with pride?

[villager]

4. As long as you agree with the doctor: "We can't make it equal." Only those with $$ get care:

"Day also claims that Canadian governments can't keep their promise of equal access to health care for everyone. Addressing the annual meeting of the Canadian Science Writers' Association in June 2007, Day said: "We can't make it equal, but we can make it good for people." This claim -- that we can't make it equal -- gets to the heart of Day's values. Roy Romanow called it a perversion of Canadian values to accept a system where money, rather than need, determines who gets access to care."

[Canuckistanian]

6. Canadians aren't going to fall for this

A supposed "Two-tier" system has been suggested before and it has been roundly criticized.

There is no way you can compromise on the single-payer model. The publically funded system would eventually collapse if the profit motive is allowed to drain resources.

Most Canadians realize this. This is the ultimate "slippery-slope" scenario.

There's NO WAY we're going to use the US as a model for health care in this country.

And any political attempt to change that will spell defeat at the polls for those who try.

[havocmom]

8. None of my daughter's pals in Australia know of ANYBODY who voted for Howard either.

But he somehow managed to win and has been dragging that nation further right and into the hands of the global corporations.

Somehow, I don't think what people want for their nations matters much anymore.

[havocmom]

7. Well heeled global fascists are buying pols all over the globe

There are no nations anymore so why should one expect any pol to be loyal to anything but their own pocket and sell out to high bidders who stand to make a killing with laws favoring their own interests?

I read New Zealand is outlawing political satire too. Is that true? Fascism is not just a problem in the US, it IS global and it IS a threat to all of us.