Tonington, are you crazy, or merely stupid?
The fact that there are privately held companies that provide some aspect, or even all, medical care does NOT mean Canada has a mixed government and private health care system. Canada essentially has a single payer system, 100% controlled by the government. It is illegal in Canada for a Canadian citizen to walk into a physicians office, plop down their own money and get an elective surgery done ahead of those that have their provincial health care. The can not pay the physician any more than exactly the same fee that the government would pay that surgeon, that hospital, etc. As a result, very few physicians will even consider bumping a patient up a waiting list, because there is absolutely no financial incentive to do so.
A private health care system would not have its fees controlled by the government. They would offer medical care to anyone that walked through their doors and could pay the fee that this entity charges. The government would NOT control their fees, would not control who gets what service, but also would not pay that entity one red cent.
As to the concept that physicians should be forced to provide services for a flat government salary, that was tried in the old Soviet Union. It didn't work well there, and it will not work well anywhere. Physicians are like anyone else, they want to earn as much as they can for their services. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Competition is a good thing. When you have competition, you keep prices down, quality goes up and everyone benefits.
Private medical means that either you, or an entity other than a governmental body, pays for the medical care you receive. This happens is EVERY European country, it happens in the USA, it does NOT happen in Canada.
This is exactly why many, many Canadians go to the US or other countries for elective procedures. The government of the provinces do not have the funding to allow everyone to receive all medical treatment, so people get on waiting lists. If they have the money, often rather than wait 10-15-20 months or more, they will go to the US and get their surgery done NOW.
Government has a responsibility to see that everyone has access to essential health care. I do not disagree with that premise at all.
But, I also believe that those that can afford something better than the governmental system should have the right to access a higher level of medical care in their own country. Unfortunately, this is NOT allowed in Canada.
And please, stop the bull manure about US insurance companies routinely denying coverage to everyone. They do not do this, unless something is prohibited by the contract that you agreed to when you signed up. I have had private medical insurance (as has my wife and my children) for many years, and we have never once been denied any medical care. My wife is a quadraplegic, and she went on Medicare in the 1980's. Medicare has denied her many medical procedures and treatments, so we almost never utilize it.
Isn't that odd, that Medicare denies treatment that her private insurance covers? That's the difference between government control and private medical insurance. With one, you get whatever the government says you can have, with the other you get what you really need.
