Medicare needs retooling

Premier Kathleen Wynne has a peculiar definition of sustainability of Ontario’s health-care system. It’s a “gimme, gimme” rant for Ottawa to increase federal funding by 5.2 per cent annually while the province theoretically limits growth to 1.7 per cent over each of the next three years. It’s akin to giving an open-ended blood transfusion to someone who is hemorrhaging.

The Canadian health-care system, medicare, is a chronic underperformer. All countries that out-perform us value the importance of the private sector in providing timely access to quality care. Medicare’s public monopoly denies patients this choice of hospital care and physician services. It is not sustainable. It must be retooled for the 21st century. Ronald Kustra, Association of Canadians for Sustainable Medicare, St. Albert, Alta.