On Health Care
The campaign talk turned to health care this weekend. The Conservatives released a plan to guarantee patient waiting times and the NDP reiterated its position on universal, public health care.
According to the official Conservative platform, a Conservative government would maintain an entirely public health care system with universal access and abide by the Canada Health Act. Sounds fine. Stephen Harper announced a guaranteed maximum wait times, allowing for patients to seek treatment in another jurisdiction if their needs cannot be met locally. Not a bad idea, really.
Things were rolling along nicely, then a reporter asked Stephen Harper if he would seek treatment at a private health care facility if his wife were to have a painful, long wait for a procedure like a hip replacement. In response, he said that he would want his loved ones to receive the best possible treatment and he wouldn’t rule out private, for-profit care. Harper, you lose again. First of all, you can’t say things publicly that don’t align with your party platform. If your party platform supports a public health care system, but you say you yourself might use a private health care system in a pinch, you look like a fool. Second, people are trying to figure out who you are, Harper, and you’re not helping them. If you don’t personally align with your party’s official platform, then who are you? These unanswered questions will reinforce voters’ fear of your leadership on election day.
Jack Layton opened a speech this past week by holding up a health card and a credit card side-by-side, saying that access to Canada’s health system should be via a health card, not a credit card. A reporter asked him the same question as Harper, and Layton said he and Olivia would rather suffer than pay to jump to the front of the line. Perfect delivery.
I was recently having cocktails with some Americans. A fellow from Florida who went to school in Texas was talking about Denys Arcand’s Les Invasions barbares and asked me if hospitals in Canada are as crowded as in the film. I said that there are some problems with the Canadian health care system, but that it’s not as bad as in the film. The other American said that public health care is a nice thought, but it just can’t work. I got kind of offended. In many Canadians, the subject of health care is pretty emotional, and as such, it’s probably one of the most difficult things for politicians to dance around. That being said, I can’t believe it’s 2005 and we’re still talking about guaranteed waiting times for patients. We’ve made a lot of progress recently in government, but the clock on health care is still stuck firmly in the past century.
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