Court case sparks concern for future

Re: Care system in no danger, Editorial, Sept. 9

Finland has created one of the world’s best educational systems by banning private schools and valuing equality above all else.

The Finns realized long ago that the best way to guarantee the support of their wealthiest citizens for public education was to ensure that their own children must also attend.

Canada should apply the same reasoning to its public health care system.

Banning for-profit clinics would ensure that Canada’s wealthiest individuals support public health care in the knowledge that they and their families must rely on the same medical system.

Only by binding the best interests of Canada’s wealthiest individuals to the well-being of all can we be assured of their unstinting support.

It is deceptive at best for the rich to argue that expensive, private health clinics will serve the interests of all Canadians, as if Canada’s poorest citizens would ever be able to access those facilities. Private health care is intended for the moneyed, not the masses, and should have no place in Canada.

As Tommy Douglas noted, “Health services ought not to have a price tag on them.” Mike Ward, Duncan

This case is not a matter of one system of health care against another, as is being stated by a glib press. Rather, it is a matter of having an option within a health care system that currently exists as a monopoly — an option that already exists for groups of Canadians like the RCMP, Workers’ Compensation Board patients, federal prisoners, etc.

It is important that all Canadians have the opportunity to read the opening arguments of both sides in this trial to see that a lot of the press is not getting what this trial is all about, but is instead feeding into popular fears about the destruction of a health care system. Jennifer Wade, Vancouver I’m afraid that a U.S.-style system is in Canada’s future if Dr. Brian Day wins his case.

I lived in the U.S. for 23 years and at times I didn’t have health insurance. I’ve had some serious health issues, including two brain aneurysms. When I had my first aneurysm in the U.S., I came very close to having to pay $250,000 to cover the care I got in the hospital. I would have been bankrupt. Luckily, I had just landed a job with health coverage, so I didn’t have to foot the bill.

My last aneurysm was in Canada, and I’m so grateful that I didn’t have to worry about having to pay for my emergency surgery — or worry about whether my employer has the right coverage to pay for it.

There are millions of people who have no health insurance in the U.S. Some of these people live every day in pain and misery.

If Dr. Day wins in court, it will only increase the waiting times for those who cannot pay to get to the head of the line. Susan Robertshaw, Burnaby In 1948, the Labour Government in the U.K. introduced the National Health Service. Over 80 per cent of the medical profession was opposed. The then-health minister met Lord Moran, president of the Royal College of Physicians in the U.K., and asked him, “What would it take to get the support of the medical profession?”

Moran replied, “To keep our private beds in the soonto-be nationalized hospitals.”

All the arguments used for and against private health care were used in the U.K. at that time. Later, Labour Health Minister Aneurin Bevan was asked how he got the support of the medical profession. He replied simply, “I filled their mouths with gold.” William Jory, past president, BCMA 1976-’77 and 1982-’83