Health Care is sustainable part 2

Because the government is driven by ideology
rather than logic, it ignores these longer-term
implications. The government believes that the
private, deregulated marketplace is the answer to
all problems even though that very marketplace has
caused the current financial crisis and that very
marketplace will continue to be the chief driver of
increased costs in health care. Prescription drugs
and new technologies, whose prices are privately
determined, are the fastest growing costs in health
care, outpacing the cost of doctors. Private
insurance rates for coverage of such drugs are
steadily increasing. Private long-term care facilities
want to double their accommodation charges,
charges that have already gone up ninety per cent
in the last few years and are about to be
deregulated by Health Minister Liepert. Private MRI
facilities and cataract surgeries cost far more than
publicly delivered services. For-profit companies in
the health care field are just that: for profit. The
only way they can keep that profit rolling in is by
increasing fees or by cutting services, often both.
Thus, as John Fleming said in a letter to the
Journal, “If we, as a society, cannot afford public
health care, then we most certainly cannot afford
private health care.”
Health Minister Liepert, however, thinks of health
care, not as an essential public service, not as a
sacred trust, but as a business; and that when
revenues are down, as CEO, he can simply make
the “tough choice” to cut production of widgets. He
thinks that by postponing surgeries or shutting
hospital beds, he will magically save money. He
does not weigh the costs in pain to individuals in
5
need of surgery. He does not consider the costs in
efficiency when operating rooms stand idle and
waiting lists grow longer. As a friend of mine,
whose hip surgery was postponed, said, “The only
way the government can conceivably save money is
if those whose surgeries are postponed die in the
meantime.”
Even worse, the Alberta government sees health
care as a business opportunity – for its friends. The
government’s solution is not to take the route most
economical for its citizens such as bulk purchasing
of drugs, which are cheaper because the
government has a strong hand to negotiate; or
increased public insurance, which is far less costly
because the risk is spread more broadly. It builds
health care facilities because that is good for the
construction industry, but then refuses to staff
them because that is a drain on the treasury.
Instead it is perfectly happy to let individuals wait
in pain and cope with high prescription or insurance
costs. Such costs, after all, are good for business.
Just like electricity deregulation.
I have no doubt the public health care system can
be more efficient. But the route the Stelmach
government is taking is sheer madness. It does not
see the folly of allowing business people, rather
than those with knowledge in health care, to make
such decisions from afar. It does not see the
irrationality of centralizing control of the health
system while decentralizing payment. It does not
see the inhumanity of its approach for those who
are frail or ill or disabled. It claims to be preserving
health care for the future while denying that very
care in the present.
If public health care is not sustained in Alberta, it
will be because the Stelmach government,
deliberately or callously or ignorantly, refused to
sustain it. And we must not let that happen.