The Medical Dictatorship violating my rights.

"With regards to international comparison, the 2014 Commonwealth Fund report on the health system performance of 11 countries ranked Canada 10th overall, indicated particularly low scores in quality, safety, access, timeliness, efficiency and equity."

   The government is violating my rights. Publicly funded health care is a wonderful and necessary thing.  No civilized country should be without such a safety net.  However, that should not preclude me from spending my own hard earned money on aspects of my or my family's health, particularly with regard to services the government cannot afford or chooses not to cover.  The header above this article makes clear that the government finds it satisfactory for us to rank tenth out of eleven health care systems (though by now, we may be eleventh).   The only reason imaginable for their reluctance to allow willing providers to provide service to patients on a voluntary insurance or cash basis is that it is a de facto admission of the failure of the public system to  provide adequate care. It is not as though those who would like to avail of such a system are seeking to avoid the large tax burden of the public system.  Quite to the contrary, they are offering to subsidize the system by buying their own care through cash or private insurance.  They are shortening waiting lists for the public system and saving it money.  When they buy services or investigations such as MRI they are making space in the public system.  Folks with money do this already, they shop, they frequently go across the border and leave their money in  other country's exchequer.  Our government addresses these problems by systematically introducing layer after layer of bureaucrats, each layer draining funds for salaries, benefits and pensions.  None of these administridiots contribute anything to the delivery of health care or the care of patients.  It would be interesting to know what proportion of the health care budget goes to maintaining this hierarchy. There is an urgent need for services the government cannot provide in a timely fashion.  There is no consolation in constraining the availability of service to the lowest common denominator to satisfy government ideologues. Patients die while on waiting lists.                                         Fifty two thousand five hundred and thirteen Canadians traveled abroad for medical care in 2014.  The large number coming from Ontario is not entirely explained by the larger population of the province.  Private health care clinics are springing up all over the country, while keeping as low a profile as possible to avoid the consequences of  contravening the Canada Health Act.  In Quebec in 2005 the Court ruled that a one year wait for a hip replacement violated the provincial human rights law.  Dr.Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon has a Charter challenge going on in BC, that is finally before a judge after an eight year wait.

  I believe the private clinic concept is going to thrive despite attempts to  prevent it doing so.  In the meantime, those who can afford it will just continue to go abroad when they can't get satisfaction at home.  Next, we will explore some of the services that are available in Canada - right now!