Article electronically reproduced from:
September 27, 1995
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A new way to fund health care
By Murray Hopper
A 1983 publication called Preserving Universal Medicare, by Monique Begin,
then the federal health minister, revealed problems with government delivery of
that service. At that time, I accurately described the medicare scene in the
London Metro bulletin:
"Medicare in Canada has become the object of a national shouting-match; federal
politicians bicker back and forth with their provincial counterparts about the
sharing of ever-escalating costs; the health-care bureaucracy and the man in
the street castigate the 'wicked' doctors for daring to extra-bill or require
user fees; doctors, in their turn, resent growing government intrusion into
matters medical; and above all the chaos, hell-bent for election on her white
medicare charger, rides Monique Begin, who by advocating further coercive
legislation, seeks to paper over the cracks, end the tumult, and restore
domestic tranquillity."
Twelve years later, it's deja vu: It was chaos and coercion then; it is
confusion and compulsion now. And it could not have been otherwise, given the
totalitarian origin of our health system. In the 1880s, as part of a plan to
create a special brand of socialism for Germany, Otto von Bismarck introduced
government medical care, and before the end of the century had put in place all
the other apparatus of the welfare state. His avowed purpose was to make all
Germans so dependent on their government they would obey, without question, any
order of the Kaiser and his military machine.
It is a bitter irony those very 'isms' (socialism, communism) we then fought
against have entered Canada through the back door, giving us a system that can
only be described as a semibenevolent fascism. No wonder we're in trouble.
consider the defects of OHIP, a poor excuse for a health insurance plan, bereft
of all essential actuarial principles such as (1) a premium that covers payout;
(2) a premium that reflects experience; and (3) a deductible that would require
Canadians to pay directly for ordinary day-to-day medical expenses. Our first
priority should be restoration of these principles.
Let's set up a "Canadian assistance with medical expense organization," a
private agency to (a) pay premiums for those unable to do so, and lb) protect
everyone against medical catastrophe. Finance this by allowing taxpayers to
give to it, say, 10 per cent of their income tax payable for a 100-per-cent tax
credit.
Canadians would accept these changes, since we are already used to the
deductibles required by the companies that insure cars or houses. We understand
without that deductible, first-dollar coverage would be unaffordable. Since the
inception of our flawed medicare system, it has declined year by year,
staggering from crisis to crisis. and will continue to do so until corrective
measures are introduced.
And remember this: We probably do not have another 12 years.
Murray Hopper is manager of special projects for the Freedom Party.
