Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Health Care Elephant

Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman is in full-scale panic mode because Dr. Brian Day will soon lead the Canadian Medical Association.

Smitherman is terrified because Day favours allowing the private sector to have a great role when it comes to providing health care treatment.

“We have an elephant in the room in health care . . . and it's posing a grave threat to our values and to our economic competitiveness," he said. "That elephant is represented by one Dr. Brian Day," exclaimed Smitherman.

Now I am not sure what Smitherman is getting at.

As head of the CMA, Day holds absolutely zero legislative or judicial powers. He can’t overturn our government monopoly health care system, only politicians can do that.

But maybe what Day can do is make a persuasive moral case for reforming our health care system. And maybe what really scares Smitherman is that he can’t come up with a good enough argument to counter Day.

The elephant in the room, in other words, isn’t Day, it's our failing socialist health care system.

1 comment:

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

This is just plain silly. Even the federal Liberals didn't comment on Day's election. Besides even those who philosophically disagree with Day, shouldn't we at least have an open debate on health care reform. If we have an open debate, maybe we will find solutions. Besides Day is not out to destroy public health care, in fact he is a strong supporter. He simply supports a private system to act as a safety valve. He suggested it be between 5-10% of all procedures while the rest be done in the public system.