The socialist healthcare system continues to crumble. It may be acceptable as a backstop to a robust private system, but it is simply unacceptable for Canadians to be locked into such a dysfunctional mess.
This story perfectly sums up the state of healthcare in Canada:
“Allison was diagnosed with cancer late last year. She was told by the BC Cancer Agency to prepare for end-of-life care. So she decided to seek treatment in the U.S. and is currently celebrating her recent marriage.”
Allison was diagnosed with cancer late last year. She was told by the BC Cancer Agency to prepare for end-of-life care. So she decided to seek treatment in the U.S. and is currently celebrating her recent marriage.
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— Global BC (@GlobalBC) November 28, 2023
Had Allison Ducluzeau been forced to only get ‘care’ within the Canadian system, the system would have ‘helped’ her to die, rather than treat her.
By going to the U.S. – where there is a robust private system – she was able to get treatment and live.
It’s that simple.
Canada’s socialist healthcare system is crumbling, due to massive inefficiencies (a hugely disproportionate number of administrators), surging immigration levels that are overwhelming the system, and the fact that doctors and nurses can easily go to the United States, parts of South America, or Europe and make far more money.
But it’s failing for an even more fundamental reason:
The lack of any kind of market signals, competition, or choice.
Healthcare providers don’t have to compete, because nobody can start up their own healthcare system alongside the public one.
Lack of competition leads to a lack of innovation.
Lack of innovation leads to a more inefficient and less effective system.
Canadians don’t have a choice, so we are forced to accept whatever substandard care we are offered.
And now, with the government rapidly expanding medical assistance in dying, the system often forgoes treatment entirely and skips right to convincing people to give up and die.
Inevitable
All of this is unsustainable. Unless Canadians all have some sort of secret death wish, it is inevitable that we will embrace a massive expansion of private healthcare either sooner or later. We literally will have no choice.
It will either happen through a federal government lifting the constraints on private healthcare in the provinces, or provinces just repeatedly defying the federal government as the voters demand an alternative to the public system.
The sooner we shift towards more private healthcare the better, because we desperately need market competition, market efficiencies, and market innovation.
At best, the socialist system can exist as a backstop to a robust system or private health delivery – universal or near-universal insurance can still be provided as in much of Europe – but to keep Canadians locked into the crumbling socialist system looks more and more like a crime.
Spencer Fernando
