Healthcare is one of the most important aspects of modern society and should never be subject to the mercies of market forces.
Introducing that element though is something that far too many parties in Canadian politics are interested in bringing about.
Placing market forces in healthcare won't solve any problems, and I can only see those problems getting worse if private options are available.
When I started writing this, it was before the BC United Party leadership threw in the towel. At the time, I had planned to look at both their healthcare proposal and that of the BC Conservative Party, as both wanted to introduce private options into our healthcare system.
While I can't compare the two anymore, due to the BC United suspending its campaign, I do have a different comparison I can draw on, just a little further east of us. It's a better comparison, as it speaks to where more conservative parties and policies could eventually lead.
Alberta's Premier Danielle Smith recently announced plans to transfer hospitals, not clinics or doctor practices, but full hospitals from Alberta Health Services into the hands of private operators such as Covenant Health.
Introducing the private market, which means for-profit entities, into the mix is what John Rustad wants. The BC Conservative's platform on their website touts "the power of private sector innovation."
The only innovations in private sector healthcare are in ways to better squeeze money out of people for the one thing that they can't afford to not spend money on: their health.
If you introduce for-profit options into healthcare, you won't see public waitlists get shorter, you'll see them get longer as doctors, nurses, lab technicians and other staff leave for better pay.
The argument of looking at America gets brought up all the time in the healthcare debate, but to be fair, neither BC Conservatives nor BC United called for allowing individuals to pay privately for their own treatment.
If they want to cut down on excess government spending though, allowing a private for-profit business to charge the government for an essential service like healthcare is not the way to do it.
Do you want to see innovation in a for-profit healthcare system? Look up what people get charged for, not the prices but the services, in the U.S. after going in for a surgery.
Paying private, for-profit clinics also won't cut down on wait times in the public system, it's only a Trojan horse to further privatization.
After all, if a doctor can make more money in the private sector, such as some of those who are educated here and leave for the United States, why would they go into the public sector?
Of course, if the argument is that the government will only pay the private sector what it pays public health services for surgeries and the like, the only private-sector innovations that will be done will be in ways to cut costs.
I'd rather my doctor who has to remove a theoretical tumour not scrimp on things like equipment or anesthesia.
There are problems with our healthcare system. That is a fact. The constant closures of hospital emergency departments across the province are a testament to that. Surgery delays due to a lack of staff, lab closures due to a lack of technicians, these are all very real.
So are the people who have to raise funds from the communities, not to pay for the surgeries, but to cover their travel or housing costs to get those surgeries.
Making those people subject to the whims of the free market is not fixing the problems.
Better funding for our doctors, for our nurses, our medical staff, our hospitals and the services that they provide, to me, is the common sense answer.
