The cost of surviving...

Read this article from the National Post: "B.C. private care specialist plans Ontario clinic".

This is such a difficult subject. It seems like it's such an obvious solution to the problem: to solve the problem of wait times in a non-profit health care system, include the option of for-profit health care. People who have the money go one place, people who don't go somewhere else. Simple. In fact, proponents of the idea think that the argument against it is impossible:

"They would have to argue it's OK for patients to wait and suffer and die on waiting lists ... They would have to demonstrate it's OK to keep patients with cancer waiting to get biopsies."

But I don't think it's that simple. As soon as you inject profit into health care, you lose the emphasis on health care. The better doctors go where the money is, leaving the poorer (and usually sicker) people with lesser health care (if any at all), and people start making choices based not on who's the better doctor, but rather who can I afford. I've lived in the US. I've tried their medical system. It's not absolutely horrible but then again I was making money and had an employer that kinda helped with choosing a plan. Even then though, I found it difficult to choose out of the dozen plans possible, and was always cautious about going to the doctor because no matter how much I read the brochures, I never really understood my own plan and who knows what they'll charge me for and when and how much. I've never had that problem in Canada. If it's important, I know the system will help me.

Money is a very poserful thing. It tends to get people's attention. Sometimes away from the important issues.