| A health care expert from Australia is cautioning Canadians not to embrace a parallel private health care system as a solution to long waiting lists.
Jim Maher, a professor in the political and international studies department at the University of New England, says that although people who can afford to buy private insurance in Australia get faster access to elective surgeries such as knee and hip replacements, waiting lists in the country’s public system have not decreased.
"People think that (parallel private health care) is the quick fix but it hasn’t worked here. There’s a lot of Australians concerned about health care issues…. Many of the concerns are similar to what you’ve got. Increased costs, waiting lists and so on, yet we have a private system," says Maher.
The debate over the future of Medicare has escalated following a Supreme Court of Canada decision last week that some say opens the door to private health care. In the decision, a majority of judges ruled that Quebec’s ban on private health insurance for health care services that are currently covered by the public system violates the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms when health care services aren’t provided in a timely manner. There’s speculation that the decision could lead to other provinces challenging the prohibition on private insurance, which could lead to a parallel private system across the country. The Liberal government has vowed that won’t happen, however, supporters of increased private health care, including the Alberta government, welcome the possibility.
"The Alberta government is very pleased with this decision. Premier Klein fully supports any change that will allow Canadians more choice in getting timely access to the health care services they want," said a statement from the premier’s office right after the decision was released.
Maher, who recently spoke at a Friends of Medicare symposium in Calgary, says the Australian government subsidized the private health care system by $2.7 billion dollars this year via tax rebates to citizens who bought private insurance.
"It’s just taken public dollars out of the public health system and created even more pressure," he says. "The money would’ve been better spent putting it into the public health care system and enabling the public health care system to deal with the problems that are facing Australia’s health care system."
As the amount Australia spends on private health care has increased, so has the percentage of the GDP it spends on health care. "We went from about 8.5 per cent throughout the ’80s and early ’90s. We’re up to about 9.3 per cent now."
Maher adds that public hospitals spend three per cent of budgets on administration, but private hospitals spend an average of 12 per cent. He attributes the increased spending to advertising.
P.J. Devereaux, a Canadian doctor who researched outcomes in private-for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals in the U.S., is adamantly opposed to any increase in private health care in Canada. He also spoke at the Friends of Medicare health care symposium in May.
Devereaux compared the health outcomes of 38 million patients in private-for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals in the U.S. between 1982 and 1995. He and his team of researchers from McMaster University found that there was a two per cent higher likelihood of death in private-for-profit hospitals. The study was published in the May 2002 Canadian Medical Association Journal.
"It’s a telling tale people should be very cautious of. Why should we go down that road?" asks Devereaux. "There’s people out there pushing for (private health care) because there’s so much money to be made. Private insurance companies have the potential to make billions per year." |
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