Thursday, September 19, 2013

Negating your rights - Canadian Health Insurance.

Most Canadians understand the need for insurance. People buy insurance to avoid catastrophic expenses, major damage or liability in an auto collision, fire damage in a house, or life insurance. It does not make sense to insure routine maintenance. People don't buy car insurance to pay for oil changes or even major expenses like new tires, or a brake job. These need to be factored in with the cost of car ownership.  Car ownership is a responsibility and it includes paying for all associated costs.

Unfortunately, when the Canadian health care system came into existence in the 1960's, those involved in creating the legislation considered health care as a "right," a positive right.  I agree that access to healthcare is a right, and cost is sometimes a barrier. So when healthcare legislation was conceived by federal and provincial legislators 50 years ago in Canada, they realized that catastrophic health events happen over the course of people's lives and these should be insurable. That makes sense, but having the government do it doesn't. The problem was made much worse when legislation was written to provide ALL health care as a right. Even routine medical visits which are on the level of automobile oil changes were covered by insurance. Everything was covered, and the scarce resource that is healthcare became virtually "free," an obvious contradiction. The government even takes pains NOT to make the cost of healthcare known to Canadian consumers. We have no idea what anything costs and they won't tell us.

Nothing is free, and its almost axiomatic that whenever a government gets involved in mitigating an expense, you can be certain that expense will increase, beyond all good intentions.

"Free" healthcare is the number one budget expense in Ontario, and probably every province. Why? Because in the rest of economy free markets and competitive innovation are the primary forces that reduce prices and keep them as low as possible. When a government monopoly takes over any aspect of the economy, the government sets the price and taxpayers have no option but to pay. Every routine procedure is theoretically covered by our Canadian health insurance, which at the same instant tries to control costs, while increasing wages and benefits to employees, and its all controlled by a small cadre of bureaucrats. Exactly the opposite of an innovative free market.

What the government has determined as a "right," actually negates rights. Access to healthcare is a right, but as governments try to control costs they ration care, and access becomes a problem. Canada is exceptional as one of freest countries in the world with some of the poorest access to timely healthcare.

The original intent was to make healthcare available to everyone, even the poorest in our society. The result is that we are all treated as equally poor and our right to timely care is out of our hands.

The video that follows needs to be shared and widely distributed among all your friends. Dr. David Gratzer of the Montreal Economic Institute explains what is good about modern medicine and bad about Canadian Healthcare.        

   

3 comments:

  1. Great article. Recently I have been experiencing very poor service from Doctors. From cancelling appointments 5 minutes before they are to happen, after I've driven hours to be there, disappearing from their practice with no notice to patients, and taking months long sabbaticals whilst not providing any way to get a hold of them, and no alternate doctor to see. They know I have no choice but to deal with it as I there is no competing service. Even though I have a family doctor, I have had to attend walk in clinics for every prescription I've needed during that time period. I am also frustrated that I cannot take my money and arrange a plan that may include dental and prescription benefits. I have to pay 100% out of pocket for both of those things right now, and so I go without my inhalers for asthma, without my epipen, and my husband goes without much needed dental surgery, because the gov't takes 35% of my income to pay for those things for other people. I feel like a slave.

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  2. The definitive purpose was to make health awareness accessible to everybody, even the poorest in our social order. The effect is that we are all treated as similarly poor and our entitlement to opportune forethought is out of our hands. the claims pages

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  3. Individual Health Insurance Ontario plans is available in different forms. Policies are available to provide coverage against different health risks. It varies in the type of benefits involved as per the age group and number of people covered inside the plan.

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