Where The Hell Is All Our Healthcare Money Going?

Provinces with populations in the millions being ‘crippled’ by a few hundred people in the ICU raises extremely disturbing questions.

Not long ago, Jason Kenney said vaccine passports were illegal:

Of course, we now know that Kenney has introduced a vaccine passport in Alberta.

He’s calling it the ‘restriction exemption program,’ as if that Orwellian phrase will somehow trick people into not seeing that it’s a vaccine passport.

How could it have been illegal before, but not illegal now?

Did the laws change?

Was new legislation passed?

Of course not.

Turns out, politicians can make it up as they go along, with the ‘laws’ and our ‘rights’ being nothing but putty in their hands to be manipulated and contorted into whatever shape they desire.

Why the reversal from Kenney?

Why such a humiliating and likely career-ending climb-down for him?

Well, the ostensible reason is ICU capacity in the province, the same reason that has been used to ‘justify’ these draconian restrictions all through the pandemic.

Yet, when you head on over to the Alberta Covid-19 website, and view their current ICU capacity, this is what you see:

218 people.

In a province of nearly 4.4 million people, we are expected to believe that 218 people in the ICU is about to cripple and collapse the system?

Notably, that is how many people Alberta says are in ICU with Covid, while saying their total ICU capacity is 286. Which again begs the question, why is the ICU capacity so low?

Same in Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and all over the country, we are told that a tiny percentage of the population being in the ICU was unsustainable.

Saskatchewan currently says there are ‘no ICU beds’ open in the entire province, they claim they are all filled up. And they are imposing mask mandates and gathering restrictions.

There are 79 ICU beds in the province.

A province of about 1.4 million people, has 79 ICU beds.

Appalling.

Back to Alberta, that province is right at the top in healthcare spending per capita as Canadian provinces go.

Overall, healthcare spending in Canada is about 11.5% of our total GDP.

According to Stats Canada, healthcare spending represents 23.4% of government spending:

“Health care spending rose 2.9% to $186.5 billion, accounting for 23.4% of total government spending. This was equivalent to $4,910 per Canadian. The increase was largely attributable to higher spending on hospital services, which rose 3.5% to $123.4 billion.”

That raises the following question:

Where the hell is all that money going?

How can a province spend billions on healthcare, make it the biggest proportion of all government spending, and then warn of ‘collapse’ when a few hundred people are in intensive care?

“Covid has exposed the woefully inadequate state of Canada’s healthcare system. Alberta, in particular, somehow only has <300 ICU beds with a pop. of 4.4m. They should have spent the last 16+ months adding more beds and healthcare workers, and we would have moved on by now.”

This isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

You see in sports when a team is ‘exposed,’ as in they are considered to be good but get absolutely demolished when they face any real competition.

Well, our healthcare system has been fully exposed as an absolute disaster and a failure.

There can be no illusions, none of the ‘feel good’ naive rhetoric Canadians love to employ whenever our healthcare system is questioned.

Simply put, we spend a gargantuan amount of money on a system that has proven to be unable to manage even a minor spike in ICU admissions.

Let me put it another way.

This is the current percentage of Alberta’s population that is in the ICU with Covid:

0.00004954545%

Think about that for a moment.

The system is about to collapse because 0.00004954545 of the population is in the ICU?

For billions of dollars spent, that’s the best the province can do?

Further, if their total ICU capacity is 286, that equals ICU capacity for just 0.000065 of the population.

Again, stunningly low.

Canada needs more private healthcare

Let’s just be honest about this.

Nothing will change in this country in terms of our terrible healthcare system until we have more private healthcare.

And for those who think this means a fully US-style healthcare system, that is not the case.

In fact, many European countries manage to mix private healthcare delivery, with universal coverage, and that turns out to deliver better results.

For example, in countries with a more hybrid model of healthcare, the government still covers the cost of treatment, even as that treatment is delivered by a for-profit entity.

Countries with that model, with a similar GDP and standard of living to Canada, often spend less per capita, while getting better results.

As one example, Germany has far more ICU capacity than Canada, with a system that mixes public and private care with universal coverage.

We also need to look at the oft-demonized US system. While it has its flaws (we should never have Canadians going bankrupt for getting healthcare treatment), it has far outperformed our system in the past year and a half.

Texas has about four times the ICU capacity of all of Canada, despite having a lower population than Canada itself.

Funny how that never gets mentioned by those who foolishly hold up our healthcare system as ‘the best.’

Clearly, some private delivery combined with universal coverage is the way to go.

Failing to learn lessons

Sadly, while Canadians should be learning how bad our healthcare system is, many have instead chosen the easier – but ultimately destructive – path of simply demonizing others.

Rather than admit they are failed leaders, rather than admit that our healthcare system is broken, and rather than admit that our naive opposition to private healthcare delivery has done significant damage, our politicians – and much of the public – have instead chosen to demonize unvaccinated Canadians, and impose draconian restrictions that only delay the end of the pandemic while making a mockery of our ‘rights and freedoms.’

If that attitude continues, then nothing will be learned, our system will remain broken, and the next time a crisis hits people will panic all over again and wonder why we spend so much to get so little.

Spencer Fernando

Photo – YouTube

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