We Have No Choice But To Embrace Private Health Care
Reality Check
In a front page article in the Ottawa Citizen (May 8, 2002),
Dr. Wilbert Keon & Michael Kirby drew these conclusions:
1. Medicare is unsustainable;
2. It doesn't matter who delivers the care; and
3. There is no choice but to embrace private health care
Click here to read the full Ottawa Citizen article
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Realtiy Check
Senators Keon and Kirby draw conclusions on the future of Medicare for which the evidence points in the opposite direction.First, they claim Medicare is "unsustainable". Total health care spending in Canada was 9.9% of GDP in 1992 and has fallen to 9.4% in 2001. The evidence demonstrates that public health care is less expensive, more effective and equitable than private health care. If Canadians can't afford public health care, how can we afford private health care?
Second, they claim "it doesn't matter who delivers the care". The evidence published in peer reviewed journals shows that investor-owned, for-profit health care results in higher mortality rates, lower quality care, more expensive care, schemes to defraud the taxpayer, and more pressure on the public system. Investor-owned health care facilities divert funds and focus from clinical care to profits.
The fact that the evidence points in the opposite direction may explain why the recent Kirby Report completely ignores the expert testimony of Dr. Arnold S. Relman, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Medical School and Emeritus Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Relman told the Kirby Committee that he would eliminate all for-profit facilities and health care businesses. "I am an evidence-driven person. (...) The facts are that no one has ever shown, in fair, accurate comparisons, that for-profit makes for greater efficiency or better quality, and certainly have never shown that it serves the public interest any better. Never."
Click here for more information on the Kirby Senate Committee
"Using drug company money sign of new reality": Keon
Click here to read the article: "Arthur Andersens of Medicine"
MORE REALITY CHECKS
Public funds are for patients, not profits!