Supply and Dental Demand

Maybe the graphic is a bit over the top, but give it time. A story on the front page of the National Post last week - "Too many dentists, too few mouths" highlights an interesting development. The supply of dentists across Canada exceeds the demand. As the article suggests patients will have "more purchasing power than ever." Thats how supply and demand works.

It seems Dental schools are graduating more dentists than ever and "price wars and discount offers" have started in "hyper-competitive markets like Toronto." Good news if you have bad teeth - or just teeth in general.

“Over the next few years, these numbers (dentists and hygienists) will grow. This means that competition within the profession will become more intense and individual dentists are going to try to find ways to attract and retain patients.”

What a shock for those young people - they're going to have to compete for patients on price and quality.

In Ontario, every single health practitioner is regulated in minute detail, right down to who may use what instruments and into which human orifice the instruments can be inserted.

Dentists, however, must also be business people. They fend for themselves mostly, they are self-employed. So when it comes to billing, overhead expenses, and ultimately trying to make a good living they are on their own. Many people have dental plans through employment, and that is a great help to dentists as well as their clientele. Of course thats what the issue is about in the Post story, too many dentists. By-the-way, the private group insurance plans are no doubt pleased that dental prices may come down, or at least not rise because of this competition. Strangely, in Ontario, dental care is not considered vital to one's health, and is NOT covered under the "universal healthcare" plan called OHIP.

While dentists and dental schools have some leeway, physicians are regulated to death. Every physician in Ontario is effectively, by law, an employee of the provincial government through OHIP. All their bills are paid by OHIP through agreements with the Ontario Medical Association. And every physician is granted the right to practice by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO). CPSO and the provincial government together play a role in how many physicians are graduated each year. The supply of physicians is controlled, the prices they are paid are controlled - so it's no wonder that Ontario (and all the other provinces) have shortages of physicians, long line ups at emergency wards, and among the longest wait times for medical care in the world.

Have you ever had to wait for dental work? I once broke a tooth on a Saturday morning, it was repaired by 1 pm that same day without a lengthy wait in a waiting room and I was able to enjoy a dinner meal. One quick phone-call was all that was required.

So lets dream for a moment, lets pretend that medical school graduates were NOT regulated in numbers, so that those who wished to be a physician and had the grades and the money, could enter medical schools. Lets pretend that physicians could be part of OHIP, and they could also accept patients privately if they wished, even charge them the OHIP fee (for residents of Ontario) and more (or less for non-residents). In other words, imagine if the government did not set the price or control the supply of physicians. Don't you think that might be a move in the right direction toward better service? Like my dental experience above.

A tiny move like that, a simple start, could change the whole supply-demand thing for physicians. It's your health.     

Let's Break the BS

An organization called "Let's Break the Gridlock" is advertising in various media with a series of ads inviting people to be part of "The Big Move." This is a $50 BILLION idea to fix the transit and traffic problems in the Greater Toronto Region (GTA). Traffic gridlock problems in the GTA ranks among the worst on the planet. 

Here is what the Beat the Gridlock groups says on Facebook:

"The Toronto Region’s transportation network has failed to keep up with our population growth, putting economic growth, prosperity and quality of life at risk. We must act."

The fix, ie. "we must act," involves new "revenue tools" which is code for new taxes and fees given to various levels of government and to government transit monopolies, on top of what people are paying now.

In other words they want people to give more money to the very same governmental organizations that have been responsible for failing to keep up with growth in the GTA for the past six decades and "putting economic growth, prosperity and quality of life at risk."

This is nothing more than a propaganda campaign to soften-up the population so people won't mind, in fact will be eager to support the need for less economic freedom. This is a classic example of the Stockholm Syndrome. Voters and citizens are being held hostage to solutions proposed by the hostage takers. Soon they will be clamouring to tax me some more!

I will be the last person to say that there is a simple fix for this. There is not. Given the entanglements that have happened, the failed opportunities to build an adequate infrastructure of roads and highways for the largest city in Canada, and the single-minded solution that ONLY concerted government action can solve this problem, no it's not going to be simple. What I do know is, that there is a better solution and it's likely one that involves less government action not more.  

You can please some of the people....Libertarian Platform Issues

You may have heard it said that libertarians agree on 95% of all issues, but fight tooth-and-nail over the remaining 5% (or is it 99% and 1%?). Its true, and I'm not the first to say that. However, the bickering and arguments over that 5% is often tedious, nit-picky, divisive and for me tiresome. Spend a few minutes in a libertarian Facebook discussion and you'll see libertarians are rarely of one mind.

If a libertarian nirvana is an endpoint, I ask why bother talking about endpoints when the reality staring us in the face is far from ideal? Furthermore, the road to that nirvana seems to be getting longer. It's a bit like arguing about where to put the furniture before the house is built. First, lets build the damn house.

As for those people who are not libertarians, and know little or nothing about us, and who may have the mistaken belief that libertarians are of one mind, and right wing to boot, well, that's wrong. If you don't believe that, just look at libertarian views on marriage, "Illegal" drugs, immigration, war, military action and so on. Not exactly traditional "right-wing."

The issue for me and the Ontario Provincial party, is trying to strike a balance on a platform for the coming election that is acceptable to our members, our candidates, our supporters, and let's not forget the voters. The whole point of being a political party is to present an attractive case to voters and to get someone elected. So a platform that appeals to the libertarian spectrum ranging from anarcho-capitalists to classical liberals and also the general public, is a challenge.

What we did is opt for an incremental approach. That's because it's taken generations for governments to reach their current bloated size, generations for taxation to reach the 50% levels that oppress us now, and generations as we watched our independence, choices and responsibilities slowly erode. It will take time to unwind the mess. That fact needs to be acknowledged. I suspect the unwinding will be hastened by the economic crisis that lingers, I'm not sure if that is good news.

So, as more and more people become aware that government cannot solve the problems it has created (in Cyprus most recently), Ontario Libertarians have posted short and long term goals that we hope will appeal to those voters who understand that limited government is a worthy goal, and we hope that libertarian ideologues will also accept our policies and work toward that goal.

Here is the link to the short version of our new Platform, and I'll have more to say on each of the planks soon.

Status Update March 17, 2013

There are not enough hours in the day. I apologize, I have neglected this page. Those who know me through other media, know that I've been busy on Facebook etc., and that is like falling into a deep dark pit.

Over the past few months I've had my political hat on, getting ready for what might be a sudden election call in Ontario. But who knows?

As Leader of a registered political party that has no status in our Legislature (pictured) and little or no public profile, it is difficult to break into the daily political news cycle. Media releases help, and I've had some success (here after the 5:30m mark). Journalists are always looking for stories and they need to be fed. It takes time to craft media releases, then share them with others for suggestions and to integrate the comments. In the last month I've done six media releases on our new platform. All of them coincide with the first month of the "new" Ontario government. Well, actually it's not that new, it really fits well with the overused phrase "putting lipstick on a pig." The pig in this case is the almost ten year old Liberal government with a new leader. The new leader was an integral part of the former government, so the lingering stench around her is tough to shake.

The media releases started out with advise for the new Premier (here). My party has been developing a new platform since June 2012, and we would be delighted if other parties steal some of the ideas. We've taken ideas from members over the summer, fall and winter, but ultimately it came down to a couple of us hammering something together that is both acceptable to our fellow Libertarians and saleable to our target audience. That is no small feat, no pun intended.

The new and Current Libertarian Platform (here) is divided into five planks:

1. Education: Smarter & Inspiring
2. Energy: Cheaper & Abundant
3. Healthcare: Faster & Efficient
4. Jobs: Secure & Rewarding
5. Budget: Lower & Simplified

Each one of those is sketched out in the original document. The five media releases that followed, were based on the original document and added flesh to the planks. Over the next little while I'll have more to say about that, and I'll try to catch up on some of the things that happened over the past few weeks.

If you are on Facebook have a look at how we are using it to advertise to a targeted audience, it seems to be working. Click this link: Facebook, and join the conversation.