healthcare

When it comes to health care, all three of Canada’s major federal political parties are drinking the same Kool-Aid. All three say they will maintain the six per cent annual increases to health care transfer payments to the provinces past 2014. But does it not seem odd they want to spend more money on a problem that has little to do with how much we spend, especially at a time when Ottawa can ill afford it?

When it comes to healthcare, Canada remains out of step with the rest of the industrialized world. Over the past 15 years or so, many countries with universal access health programs have been increasingly tapping into the competitive market for solutions to their health care woes. Others, like Japan and Switzerland, have always depended on competitive health care markets to deliver access to care regardless of ability to pay. Unfortunately in Canada, governments of all stripes remain steadfast in their dismissal of private sector solutions.