Equal access to health care is fine for communists but not Canadians

Re: Equal access to health care is fine for communists but not Canadians.

I couldn't agree more. Where else in Canadian society is every single person forced to wait in bread lines that only the poorest and most vulnerable can afford in the name of "Equity"? I didn't think equity was the goal. I've always (naiively??) imagined it was excellence for all.

While there is certainly a handful who would champion this ideal (about 17 - 20% routinely vote NDP), the rest of us perennially reject the socialist view of society in everything but (so the politicians claim) health care.

I don't believe the politicians. I believe the public have had it with this health care model. It has resulted in the Soviet-style mess we currently endure ... ONLY in health care. I think the public is far ahead of the politicians in this matter.

I thought that Tommy Douglas's ideal was to ensure that the poorest and most disadvantaged in society were not left behind. He envisioned an "insurance" model where many young, healthy (low cost) workers in a simple 50's prairie economy financed the health care for a small number of sick (high cost) patients through a relatively small contribution from everyone. This insurance model worked well in the 50's, 60's & 70's.

That model is no longer valid. We now have a large, and growing, aging population, with a subsequently large number of "sick" people with very high costs due to the conditions of aging, high - tech treatments, high-cost facilities and high expectations from a well-educated and highly-demanding clientele, all supported by a shrinking number of young, highly-taxed and increasingly resentful workers, in a globally competitive environment.

In Ontario, the proportion of tax revenues going to health care has risen from 17% in the 60's and 70's to 46% of the entire budget in 2005. The Fraser Institute projects that this proportion will rise to 50% by 2011, to 66% by 2017 and by 2026, just 21 years from now, it will consume 100% of the Ontario provincial budget unless something changes. We are incresingly foregoing needed improvements in infrastructure, education, law and security, defense, agriculture, energy and natural resources in the name of propping up a failing health care model.

No matter what your political leanings, or no matter what your personal stake in maintaining the status quo, this simply cannot continue. The system will collapse on itself. It is unsustainable.

Canada is the only country remaining in the world, besides Cuba and North Korea, that demands a tax -funded, government - provided health care monopoly. Every other country has allowed some form of private health care in a parallel system to the government-funded model. Raising taxes to provide the levels of improvement required, and demanded by our citizens is not an option. Employers will leave for greener pastures, and taxpayers will toss out any government that attempts to levy tax increases on this scale.

I am personally not willing to give one cent more to governments, because they have shown time and time again that they can't be trusted to spend the money in the manner they have promised. If I need a doctor, I would rather pay the doctor directly, and pay him or her what they truly deserve, not what some bureaucrat says they can get, in order to save enough for political kickbacks and pork in some other department, or in hidden rewards to their own parties.

Further rationing of services, longer waiting times and increasing shortages in futile attempts to contain real costs are unacceptable and repugnant in a free society.

If improving the health care system demands that my family pay another $3,000 - $6,000 a year, then I'm paying directly for services or personal insurance to obtain excellence. "Medicare" should have to pay only for catastrophic illness and end-of-life treatment that is too expensive to insure, as well as greatly improved care for the truly indigent who are unable to pay for themselves for even the basic necessities. Paying taxes for people who can pay for themselves in a system that is chronically and increasingly short of resources is both wrong-headed and foolish.

The "Equity" model is no longer sustainable, and the tenets upon which it is based are no longer valid. The time has come to move on, and join the rest of the world in a parallel private-public model. It's time for dogma to step aside for pragmatism.

You can write all the letters you want to criticize me, discredit my views, or call me names, but sometime before 2026, you will be forced to accept the realities of the market. The buggy whip makers of 1900 dug in their heels to oppose the automobile. There are very few buggy whip makers today.

Excellence is achieved only by the constant pursuit of perfection. Treading water simply to keep our heads above water is NOT acceptable to this Canadian. Kudos to Stephanie Ross and the Centre for Preventative Medicine for taking the lead and bravely stating the obvious.