Yet more support for Public Single-Payer Healthcare
I simply can't say it as well as the Toronto Star can.
This is more evidence that public single-payer healthcare is not just an idea born of particular ideology or "right vs left" nonsense. In a very practical sense, from one of the largest businesses in the world (General Motors), it simply works best. It give us competitive advantage. It is cheaper to run and keeps costs down.
This is not about "socialism" this is about the best system for Canada. Michael Grimaldi, president of General Motors of Canada, and the raw numbers speak for themselves. Public healthcare, when funded, just works.
So I wonder what is taking Ujjal Dosanjh so long to notice? Wouldn't investing in Healthcare be just as important for business and our competitive advantage as a tax cut? I think so and Michael Gimaldi might agree.
posted by Mike @ 11:38 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
My (longwinded) response is here:
http://www.boundbygravity.com/2005/07/tstar-swings-and-misses.aspx
This has long since become a battle of ideology. It's funny how GM takes the ideology down a notch.
If it "just works", how come it isn't "just working".
If monopolies are cost-efficient, and keep costs down, why don't we nationalize other industries too? You have to defend the specifics of why health care is unique, you can't just assert it.
Well, ALW, it has to be properly funded. And in the instance of healthcare, it is not to make a profit, it is solely to deliver a service. It is, therefore, not like a monopoly you may have studied at school or bought your operating system from. I would hardly call those monopolies cost efficient.
I mean, even in its current state, it is still working better than say, the system in the US. A major part of the problem in Canada is that our very doctor-centric system has too few doctors. And it has too few doctors because of "protectionist" practices that keep foreign-trained doctors from entering the system and keep the supply of doctors artificially low by not graduating enough of them. Change any or all of those things (less doctor-centric, more doctors) and we will have solved much of the wait time issues. The system worked when I was in highschool and University, before years of underfunding. It can work again. In Saskatchewan, they have reduced wait time by 30% by restoring funding. I think the system can be fixed and work fine without adding privatization.
Now, name me another industry or service that EVERY SINGLE CANADIAN uses like healthcare. Name me one industry that the consequences of NOT using it would be so devastating. Tell me another industry in which the customers essentially enter into "negotiations" under extreme duress, at times litterally fearing for their lives and physical safety.
That's why healthcare is unique. By its very nature it is unlike anything else. It is up there with National Defence and Public Safety as things that should never be run by "private" interests.
I don't like monopolies any more than you do, nor do I think the governemnt should be in total control of industries. Why, I think there are some that government has no business in at all. Healthcare is the exception to that rule.
If I am not allowed to quote the Sun, then you aren't allowed to quote the Star......lol
Good one Dino!
Just remember one has news and the Sun has?
Time for the federal government to step up in a big way. Ujjal needs to show leadership and if it means a war with some provinces sobeit!
Ujjal???? oh geeeeeze, kinda like our agriculture minister helping out with the R-CALF situation, not gonna happen. Liberal ministers are scared of sticking thier necks out too far for fear of being cut off right now. Any bad moves by thier part may in essence lose them votes, the system at the moment is easily swayed as each new "scandal" appears, whether fact or fiction.
Enough Mike! Step out of your bubble and GROW. Progress........
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