The Vancouver Sun, March 14 2002

Medicare in a modern world

Tim Lynch
Health Services Reimbursement Consultant Vancouver.

In the 1940s and 1950s CanadaÕs political leaders conceived the tenets of Canadian healthcare with humility and pride. The1960s / 70s politicians recognized health as a Òvote grabberÓ which lead to promises that could only be managed by sequentially adding money. From that era we have inherited provincial governments that canÕt cope and a federal government that uses healthcare to justifying its re-election.

Creating a commission is the only action the federal government can take in health. Perpetuating the ideological mythologies of Canadian healthcare, the Commissioner had to come from CanadaÕs ground zero in healthcare Ð Saskatchewan.

The health system envisioned by Tommy Douglas identified the need for a farmer with a broken arm to receive care or a pregnant woman quality services. He never imagined government sponsored chronic care services. In Mr. DouglasÕ era the family assumed such responsibilities and, in the absence of modern pharmaceuticals, people died.

It seems politically incorrect to question how a retired politician, of a uniquely agricultural province, with a population about one million and a definitive ideological bias, could re-design a multi-billion dollar health system to accommodate the expectations of CanadaÕs 30 million modern day consumers.

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