Health care could be a potential campaign issue for Alberta’s next election, as opposition parties are beginning to raise this topic in their pre-stump speeches. It is a perennial topic within politics, as it juxtaposes two positions, social and economic concerns, and it clearly delineates two political ideologies.
Most of us have a very limited understanding of the health-care system, usually premised by our direct experiences: we may have faced long wait times in receiving the help we need, tainting our perspective, or our experience may have been more positive.
In either case, few of us have not known a Canada, an Alberta, without a health-care system so we take much of it for granted. We forget that this system is barely 50 years old, and that before that, we had a fully private system that was a luxury good available only to a few, and a charitable service for the rest.
Today, however, it is a social good, though still a commodity, which is paid through our general taxes, offering us a universal service for our primary medical needs.
Though there are direct economic benefits for our economy with a public health-care system, there are also burgeoning costs, which our governments are struggling to contain.
The growth of this industry, the inflated price of pharmaceuticals, and the demographic changes within our province and country are all bringing economic pressures, which politicians seek to curtail, as we have become averse to debt and deficit budgets.
This has been the same however for any of the health-care systems around the globe, whether it is the Beveridge-styled system (U.K. and Sweden), the Bismarck-styled system (Germany and France), or a private insurance system as found in the U.S. All of these have faced similar hurdles, and not one has produced an adequate solution.
France, for example, has the most efficient with short waiting times and comprehensive coverage, but it is also the most expensive.
Within Canada, we have the added issue of jurisdictional politics, as health care is the domain of the provinces, and some, like Alberta, are leery of federal assistance. Though the federal government provides approximately 17 per cent of Alberta’s health-care budget, extra funding, most recently for mental health and pharma-care, comes with strings attached. Such strings present political dilemmas for some parties.
As the electorate, we need to be aware of this, as many of the promises being made cannot be fulfilled. We can have a fast and cheap system, but not good; a good and cheap system, but not fast; or a good and fast system, but not cheap. Each of these solutions comes with a cost that we, as a society, will have to bear.
The privatized system, whether it is two-tiered or wholly private, does not reduce costs or waiting times, but it does undermine the ideal of universal health care. The question for us is how far do we want to turn back the clock: do we want to go back to a time before universal health care, or do we need to find another solution. The party that looks to be more creative on this matter could be the one worth listening to.
- reprinted from St. Albert Gazette, a Great West newspaper
