Social Policy in Ontario

Ontario should ditch any plans to further privatize health care. It just doesn’t work — and usually makes matters worse

Posted on August 12, 2022 in Health Policy Context

Source: TheStar.com — Authors: Thomas Walkom

TheStar.com – Opinion/contributors
Aug. 12, 2022.   By Thomas Walkom, Contributing Columnist

It benefits not those who need health care, but those who can pay the handsome user fees required by what in effect is a two-tier system.

The Ontario government is considering the privatization of health care. Health Minister Sylvia Jones dropped that bombshell this week when she refused to rule the idea out of bounds.

When it comes to dealing with a crisis (which she refused to label a “crisis”) that has forced hospitals to shutter emergency rooms and postpone necessary surgeries, “all options are on the table,” Jones said.

Ontario health care, she said, has always had a public component. What she didn’t say is that Ontario health care has always had a private component as well.

Indeed, a government committed to real health-care reform would start by taking a hard look at this private component.

Long-term care is largely delivered privately. So is primary health care. Certain kinds of elective surgery, such as cataract operations, are often contracted out to private clinics.

One of the first questions facing a government truly interested in health-care reform would be whether too much care is already delivered privately.

Would it be more efficient to increase the public funding going to primary care and spend less on emergency room care?

Would it make more sense for the government to pay publicly funded nurses more in the long run instead of limiting their wage increases to one per cent?

If Ontario’s health-care system is in crisis, now is the time to look at innovative ways of public spending. It is not the time to cut public spending back.

Innovative ways of spending could include pharmacare and denticare, both of which would cost plenty up front but would save money in the long run.

A spending guarantee for long-term care would cost money to implement but would protect seniors from viruses like COVID-19.

Similarly, guaranteed emergency room funding could protect those in small towns and elsewhere who require immediate hospital care.

Theoretically, all of these reforms could be paid for privately with user fees. But this would not only be an affront to the very essence of medicare. It would be more expensive.

That’s because the savings in medicare stem from the public system’s ability to leverage economies of scale.

Jones says nothing is off the table as the government rethinks health care. In theory, that sounds good. In practice, is it less so.

First, the government should ditch any plans to further privatize the system. The evidence shows that privatization just doesn’t work. Indeed, it usually makes matters worse.

That’s because it benefits not those who need health care, but those who can pay the handsome user fees required by what in effect is two-tier health care.

Second, the government would be wise to view this crisis as an opportunity — a chance to rationalize and expand a public system that by and large does work.

That, in turn, requires a government willing to admit that a crisis exists, yet one that is capable of dealing with it in a sensible and non-ideological fashion.

Over to you, Doug Ford.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/08/12/ontario-should-ditch-any-plans-to-further-privatize-health-care-it-just-doesnt-work-and-usually-makes-matters-worse.html

Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, participation, standard of living

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