Private health care no answer
Let’s improve public system instead of letting rich pay, says Dr. Monika Dutt.
The following was written in rebuttal to an April 26 editorial entitled ‘Let’s stop denying need for private health care’:
It’s disappointing to see the Ottawa Citizen’s editorial board fall back on tired and easily disproven arguments in favour of increased private payment for health care. At a time when we see widespread public support for innovations to expand medicare, and as we witness the chaos spreading south of the border as the Trump administration attempts to repeal elements of the Affordable Care Act, your recent piece was jarring to read.
While wait times for necessary services are indeed a problem for accessing elective and non-urgent care in some jurisdictions, increasing the use of private payment will not shorten wait times for most Canadians. Numerous international studies show that having a multi-payer system results in longer wait times, except for those who can afford to pay. You cannot reduce wait times for those who rely on the public system by taking resources and health care professionals out of that system and putting them into a private pay system. The logic just doesn’t add up.
Expanding the use of privately funded care flies in the face of a core principle of Canada’s public health care system we so rightly cherish: that access to quality health care should be available to all based on need, not on ability to pay.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t ways to make our public health care system better. Canadian Doctors for Medicare have strongly advocated for evidencebased initiatives that will improve not only the quality of care in Canada but also its accessibility. There are plenty of great ideas across Canada and internationally to improve care and shorten wait times. Transforming how and where we deliver care is fundamental.
The College of Family Physicians of Canada released a report titled Innovation in Primary Care: Effective Primary/Secondary Care Interface in January, outlining a number of proven examples to improve care delivery. British Columbia’s Pathways program and Ontario’s e-consult initiative (which started in Ottawa) involve online referral tools that connect family physicians and other specialists to help improve the efficiency of patient referrals.
Another initiative that would improve our public health care system would be the creation of a national universal pharmacare program. This idea is not only widely popular among Canadians, recent studies have shown that it can be implemented fairly affordably and would save both Canadians and private insurers billions of dollars. With one in five Canadian families unable to afford their prescription medications, now is the time for political leadership to create a national publicly financed pharmacare program for all.
Ironically, the same provincial budget the Citizen so cynically referenced did actually include an initiative that will improve the health of Ontarians. The Liberal government’s budget promises the creation of a pharmacare plan for all Ontarians under the age of 25, regardless of their family income, starting in 2018. This announcement comes just days after the provincial NDP announced that it would create a universal pharmacare plan should it form government in the next provincial election.
Resorting to privately funded care for those who can afford it will not help solve the wait time problem for the rest of us. It is time that this illogical idea be put to bed for good.
You cannot reduce wait times for those who rely on the public system by taking resources and health care professionals out of that system and putting them into a private pay system.