To your health

You all would have had my views on the earth-shattering Supreme Court of Canada decision a while ago, but I've had to wait for a suitably empty evening to come along. Now it's here, and I'm here, and you're here, so here we go.
Paul Martin was quick to proclaim "we're not going to have a two-tier health care system in this country". Gee, Paul, if that's the case, you've got your work cut out for you:

• QUEBEC, ALBERTA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, AND PRICE EDWARD ISLAND allow doctors to set their own fees and work outside the public health system.
• ONTARIO AND MANITOBA allow doctors to opt out of public health and refunds patients' monies paid to these doctors.
• NOVA SCOTIA allows private insurance for private services.
• So does NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR.
• So does SASKATCHEWAN.
• So does NEW BRUNSWICK.
• In ONTARIO, the Liberal provincial government has, in effect, privatized huge areas of medicine previously covered under the public plan, most notably chiropractic, physiotherapy, and optometry. While there was a huge outcry at first, people seem to have adjusted to it.
• THROUGHOUT CANADA, "very important people" such as athletes and polititicans routinely jump the public queue. Ask Paul Martin if he or any member of his family has ever set foot in a private clinic and dare him to lie.
• ALSO THROUGHOUT CANADA, anyone who chooses to purchase an extended benefit plan through their place of employment is actually aiding and abetting the dreaded second tier of health care. Consider: these plans cover you for items not insured by the public system. You and/or your employer pay for this coverage on a monthly basis--the government doesn't. How "public" is that, exactly?

The following is an excerpt from this eminently sensible decision:

We conclude, based on the evidence, that prohibiting health insurance that would permit ordinary Canadians to access health care, in circumstances where the government is failing to deliver health care in a reasonable manner, thereby increasing the risk of complications and death, interferes with life and security of the person as protected by section seven of the[Quebec] Charter.

It's only a matter of time before patients at risk of "complications and death" launch a barrage of cases to extend the right to purchase and use private insurance clear across Canada. Given that, as shown above, we already have two-tier health care in this country, the debate on its purported arrival is moot.

What we can debate, what we need to debate, is what form our current two-tier health care system should take. It's patently obvious that nobody wants the American system. Even if that system worked (and it doesn't), it's American, and no self-respecting Canadian would have anything to do with it unless he or his sister was dying and a Detroit hospital could fix their condition in a timely manner...oh, never mind.

I think we all agree that the most prominent touchstone of the Canada Health Act is universality...the idea that we do not turn away patients simply because of their inability to pay. It's not too much of a stretch to suggest that our marriage to this idea is what makes us Canadian.

I think, too, that we all agree that our health care system is ailing, in spite of billions of public dollars being poured into it at every opportunity. We all have experienced the vicissitudes of the system, or at least know someone who has: the seven hour waits in Emerg; the seven week delay waiting for a vital MRI; the seven month waits for the first consultation with a specialist.

Not many people realize that the sacred cows of India are walking cases of tuberculosis, among a host of other diseases, not despite their sacredness but because of it. It is forbidden in India to so much as touch one of these creatures...which would include administering care, no matter how needed it may be.

The parallels with our health care system are striking, n'est-ce pas?

The Supreme Court of Canada has done us a great service by daring to poke and prod our most sacred cow. Now it's up to Parliament to decide how to proceed. Paul "I reject your reality and insert my own" Martin is clearly not up to the challenge.