Letters by a modern St. Ferdinand III about cults

The best health care systems are in Europe. I have personal experience with the systems in Holland and France. They both have large [45-50% of total spend] private insurance and health markets. The socialized system is funded through the general tax system including income and consumption taxes. Everyone pays in. But if you want choice, access, and immediate service you have the right and the option to choose a private insurance plan, or pay cash. This is sensible and necessary. Socialized markets fail because they deny choice, price points, and supply and demand interactions. Privatized health care leads to constraints on government spending and meddling; improved consumer power and choice and by extension a better provisioning of resources, technologies and clinics. Who can possibly object to this? As a politician and doctor so correctly notes:

“.....allow patients to pay for care if they wish in entirely separate, privately funded facilities. Individuals who go to these centres would be paying for care out of their own pockets or through privately purchased insurance. By doing this, patients will be leaving the public queues and thus shortening them. Physicians would work in both systems. Patients choosing to access private facilities would also be free to use the public system that their taxes pay for. Private facilities would act as a release valve, removing demand from the public system without removing resources. This would leave more money for the public system to use.

Seventeen of the top 20 health-care systems in the world are in Europe (Canada ranks 22nd) and all integrate public and private care. Surely we should adopt measures used by those countries that provide better care and improved health outcomes for their citizens.

In Canada, the sick are seen as a cost to the medical system. In Europe, they are seen as an asset, because hospitals are paid for treating the patient. Accordingly, we need to change the mechanism by which we fund our hospitals. Today, they receive a lump sum of money that doesn’t take into account the demands they face. Hospitals should receive payment for the services rendered to treat patients and not just a block of funds.

Canada also lags far behind most developed countries in e-health. We need to get into the 21st century and use the information technology tools that are available to reduce administrative burdens and provide better and more cost-effective care for the patient.

Our aging population means our caregivers are aging too. We need a national medical workforce plan so that we can train and retain the type of medical professionals we need in the places we need them the most.”

If a country can liberate its health market from government distortion and control the following would happen; death rates for the 5 main cancers would decline; lives saved would be improved; access would blossom; technology clusters would form in which innovations and new products would be developed creating clusters of greatness, and jobs; and more doctors and nurses would enter the sector since they would not be wage-capped any longer. The mantra that socialized medicine is the only 'moral' choice in healthcare is a canard and a vicious one at that. Socialism always fails. In health care the failure is manifested through a system which denies the consumer choice and power; wage caps professionals, ignores technology including e-health initiatives, rations supply and all resources in a colossal failure of centralized planning; and ultimately ends up killing people through a denial of timely service, waiting lines and an inclination to reject innovations in the areas of pharmaceuticals, non-standard treatment practices and technological applications.

There is no morality in Stalinizing a market, denying choice and consigning sick people to suffering or worse. Unleash the market, create jobs and give us some choice. We are big people. We can handle it.