Despite the fear-mongering, competition in health care works says analyst
Posted Apr 2, 2019 8:51 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
CALGARY (660 NEWS) – It can be one of the most divisive topics during any election campaign: how to improve health care.
Alberta has some of the longest wait times for things like hip and knee replacements and cataract surgeries.
The front runners in the provincial election campaign have promised to reduce wait times, but that’s where the similarities end. Both the New Democrats and United Conservative Party have very different paths on how to achieve the goal.
READ MORE: NDP and UCP unveil full platforms along with attacks
The NDP has proposed spending more money on staff and facilities, while the UCP is pushing more public-private delivery.
Critics of the latter do their best to scare Canadians, suggesting the introduction of private competition would lead to longer wait times, higher costs and poorer quality.
One health care analyst believes we need to have a more informed discussion if we are going to get more bang for our health care dollar.
Bacchus Barua, Associate Director of Health Policy Studies at the Fraser Institute, points to other social democracies that have adopted private delivery models and boast much better results than Canada.
“There are other countries that do a better job with universal health care, they just do it very differently,” Barua said. “I think anybody who is interested in improving the situation for patients should have a look at what these countries do differently.”
According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Alberta is among the biggest spenders on health care in the country, only second to Newfoundland and Labrador on a per-capita basis.
READ MORE: Wait times for certain procedures growing in Canada: report
Barua said if Canada is going to get the world-class health care system we’re already paying for, we need to pay more attention to health care models that work.
“We cannot get away from the fact that other countries that do better than us do universal health care very differently.”
The current approach of throwing more money to improve access is not providing the province with the gold-plated system it is paying for.
“We’ve never really seen any large improvements in wait times when just more money is pumped into the system.”
