Canadians more open to private health: Faith in system eroding

Funny that! Dictatorship becoming unpopular even in submissive Canada!

Canadians are losing faith in the health care system and are open to the possibility of private initiatives if their access to quick and effective treatment does not improve, according to a new survey. "If Canadians are not reassured that timely access is eventually going to happen, their support for this private option is likely to increase," said Marie Larose, vice-president of POLLARA Research, which conducted the 2005 Health Care in Canada Survey. "If politicians are not able to demonstrate that there are solutions, people are more and more going to turn to other answers." Fifty per cent of respondents to the POLLARA survey indicated their confidence in the public health care system is falling, the number rising even higher -- to 54% -- among women....

Ms. Larose said the eroding levels of faith in public treatment coincide with growing awareness of private options, heightened by the recent Supreme Court decision that opened up a potential new role for private service providers. "We've been conducting the study since 1998, and gradually we've seen that more and more Canadians are looking for new ways of meeting the challenges facing the health care system," she said. But what that means for the future support of private health care is not clear, she said, as Canadians remain conflicted about the role alternative service providers should play and what impact they would have.

Forty-five percent of the public, 49% of nurses and 74% of physicians support the idea that Canadians should be allowed to pay out of pocket to purchase quicker access to health services funded under the public system. But most respondents believe private health care would have both good and bad effects. A majority of Canadians believe it would create a two-tier system (68%), lead to a shortage of physicians in the public system (61%) and increase costs (58%), but more Canadians also believe it would result in shorter wait times (68%) and improve the quality of their treatment (60%). "It's going to be difficult to have a debate about private health care because Canadians are very divided," Ms. Larose said. "They see the positives and they see negatives. They're willing to support it, but the basic principle that everyone has to have access is still there."

Mike Villene, a senior nurse consultant with the Canadian Nurses Association, which partnered in the survey, said the results demonstrate a "paradox of concern" about the current health care model. People are generally happy with their treatment when they have experienced a medical emergency, he said, but are worried about the impact of wait times on their access to care in general.

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

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