Posted on 04/26/2005 1:37:56 PM PDT by Pikamax
52% back private care Quebec, B.C., Prairies favour a user-pay alternative: poll
Joseph Brean National Post
April 26, 2005
CREDIT: Glenn Lowson/file Dr. Omar Hakim of the TLC Laser Eye Centre in the BCE place in Toronto performs laser eye surgery.
More than half of Canadians believe they should be allowed to pay for private health care, as long as there is also free care available for all who need it, a new poll finds.
In the new Leger Marketing poll, the national average was 52% in favour of allowing "those who wish to pay for health care in the private sector to have speedier access to this type of care while still maintaining the current free and universal health care system." Forty-two per cent were opposed, and 5% had no opinion.
Quebecers were most likely to support a private system alongside the public one, with 65% saying yes, followed by British Columbia at 56%, and the Prairies at 51%, the poll found. Ontario and Alberta leaned slightly to the no side, with 46% and 45% in favour of private care. Only 37% of respondents in the Atlantic were in favour of private care.
Health care is likely to be, alongside the sponsorship scandal, one of the most important issues should an election be called this spring. The Prime Minister recently accused Stephen Harper, the Conservative leader, of having a "hidden agenda" to scrap the Canada Health Act.
The Liberals, meanwhile, have been accused of turning a blind eye to the proliferation of private health care in Quebec for fear of further antagonizing voters there, while being critical of Alberta for allowing some expansion of the private sphere.
Among poll respondents with stated political affiliations, Liberal voters were 49% in favour, Conservatives 67% in favour, NDPers 35% in favour, and Bloquistes 64% in favour.
To a separate question, 57% of Canadians said they believe "patients sometimes obtain health care faster than they should because of their contacts within the health care system." Regionally, this suspicion was highest in Quebec (70%), Alberta (67%) and the Atlantic provinces (61%), and lowest in British Columbia (45%).
Michel Kelly-Gagnon, president of the Montreal Economic Institute, which commissioned the poll, said the results reveal a gap between Canadian laws and opinions.
"Unless you're absolutely a communist, you have to agree that, with your disposable after-tax income, you should have the right to consume whatever it is that you want, including private health insurance," he said.
He said the Quebec discrepancy -- the province tolerates more private providers than most others -- is largely the result of Quebecers not sharing the reverence of other Canadians for medicare as a defining national characteristic. Quebec francophones, for instance, will generally point to language and culture as their primary points of pride, Mr. Kelly-Gagnon said, whereas English Canadians will point to their social programs, especially medicare.
He predicted the Liberals will cast private health care as a Conservative issue in the coming election, but even among their own constituency there is strong support for more privatization.
"The only party that has a clear 'No' is the NDP," he said.
The same poll was also conducted during the federal election campaign last year, and the results were nearly identical.
Health care went on to become a central issue of that campaign. Paul Martin openly scolded his Health Minister, Pierre Pettigrew, for suggesting he is open to more creative private-sector involvement in health care, and the Conservatives, keen to divert attention from the polarizing topic, winced at Alberta Premier Ralph Klein's mid-election announcement of a private health care reforms.
This year, with another election in the works, health care has again thudded onto the agenda. This month, in response to direct attacks in the House over the sponsorship affair, the Prime Minister accused Mr. Harper of having a "hidden agenda" to scrap the Canada Health Act.
Even with an election looming, no federal party has any stated plans to amend the Canada Health Act to appease the slim majority who favour the choice to pay for private care.
"I don't see any federal party currently having a genuine plan to harmonize the Canadian health care system with what everyone else in the world does," Mr. Kelly-Gagnon said, but he expects it is inevitable. "I cannot imagine that we're going to remain for the next 50 years the only country with Cuba and North Korea that's banning a private parallel system."
At the same time, he said, an election campaign is not the time for risky political action. "My experience has been that political campaigns are rarely the proper moment to have in-depth discussions about public policy alternatives."
James Smythe, a health economist at the University of Alberta, said private health care comes with its own risks, such as the possibility that only the rich would benefit. The middle class might be unable to fully participate, with the potential danger of a weakened public system, he said.
The poll of 1,504 Canadians, conducted between April 5 and 10, is considered accurate to within 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
"Unless you're absolutely a communist, you have to agree that, with your disposable after-tax income, you should have the right to consume whatever it is that you want, including private health insurance," he said.
Since Hillary doesn't agree, what does that say about her.
(Although with her recent lurch to the right to position herself for 2008, I doubt she would even support her health control plan now.)
What a concept! Allowing citizens to purchase their own medical care.
Trouble in the socialistic utopia to the north?
Canadians have always had that option. They just have to come to the US to exercise it, that's all. Canadians with money never have to wait 2 years for a hip replacement- they just go to Buffalo or Burlington to get it in two weeks. The whole supposedly egalitarian nature of Canadian health care is a sham.
The government should like this proposal as well. They collect taxes for medial care that people will not wait for, then they will collect taxes on the for-profit care that is delivered to the people who would not wait.
My dad, who lives in southern Ontario, hasn't been to a Canadian doctor in over ten years. He found the care lacking in Ontario after he had prostate cancer, so now he drives to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for all medical stuff.
My dad, who lives in southern Ontario, hasn't been to a Canadian doctor in over ten years. He found the care lacking in Ontario after he had prostate cancer, so now he drives to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for all medical stuff.
My dad, who lives in southern Ontario, hasn't been to a Canadian doctor in over ten years. He found the care lacking in Ontario after he had prostate cancer, so now he drives to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for all medical stuff.
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