CKNW Editorial
for November 14, 2000

So, after accusing Stockwell Day of standing for a two tiered health system federal Health Minister Allan Rock finally admits that we've already got at least two tiers in our health system. Isn't it interesting that Jean Chretien continues to act as if his own health minister isn't there ... the ads continue ... and Mr Chretien continues to slam Mr Day on this point. What utter hypocrisy. For years members of parliament, top bureaucrats and armed forces people have had their own tier of health care in Ottawa ... a private system that has no queues and its own hospital. The gall of it! The term two tier has now become a political pejorative which is meant to conjure up in the minds of voters hapless masses dying in the streets while the chauffeured elite have their every care looked after by the very best of medical care. Of course it means no such thing but that image suits the likes of Jean Chretien so he continues to use misleading ads and slogans.

The health care system in Canada is a closed system within which there is not supposed to be any of the workings of a marketplace. Supply and demand don't count and the price of services is set by government edict and negotiated settlements rather than on principles of a free market. It is well then to consider the wise words of Winston Churchill who said "when you ban a free market you create a black market". And as so often is the case the great man pronounced great wisdom.

Let's see where Mr Churchill has been proved right. If you are injured on the job and are under Workers' Compensation the fixed marketplace doesn't count for you and you get very special treatment indeed.

No lineups and lots of rehabilitation programs. That doesn't mean that at the end of the day you are better done by because Workers Compensation, itself a government monopoly, has its own fixed marketplace but it does prove a point - when one of the users of the healthcare system is the government, the rules change.

If you happen to be a professional athlete playing for the Canucks, the Grizzlies or the Lions no ordinary marketplace for you. There is no six or eight month wait for a knee operation - it happens right now and by the best money can buy. If you want eye surgery, be it laser or good old fashioned with the scalpel surgery, and you have a spare $1600, you can have your operation in three weeks not 6-8 months. How come?

Don't ask me why, but somehow being able to see again is not perceived by government as being serious enough to make you prisoner of the elective surgery list people are on for most other ailments.

If you need an operation for cancer, and are not prepared to allow it to continue to grow in your stomach or head until you get to the top of the list you can spend some money in the States and get it looked at right now. But where the States is attractive is not just for operations - if you want an MRI scan and are prepared to pay so that you know about your condition, why it's Bellingham for you if you can afford it. Moreover, we have surgical clinics across the land, including in Vancouver, that operate in wide open defiance of Medicare.

The bottom line is that Churchill was right and we have developed several black markets.

What is really so wrong with all this is that instead of our prime minister and his party talking about better medical care for Canadians, they are firing irrelevant shots in order to prove that the opposition wants an "American style" health system whereas in fact they clearly do not.

Jean Chretien and his party ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. It was they that through clawing back transfer payments that got the provincial health systems in trouble in the first place. Now comes Mr Chretien and Paul Martin acting as if they had nothing to do with the problem of the dismantling of Medicare, placing the blame on the Alliance which hasn't spent a minute in power.

Health care should be an issue - but it should be an honest one not the phony baloney issue trumped up by the Liberals in order to make a false attack based upon false premises against the Alliance.