Tom Brodbeck (who really deserves more exposure than his column in the Winnipeg Sun gets him) had an interesting article (articles disappear into the great Sun vault in the sky after a few weeks – read it while you can) that was published on May 18, 2005.
He points out that a Liberal Senator, Michael Kirby, gave a speech on May 17, 2005 in Winnipeg on why Canada needs more private health care. The strange thing is, no media jumped all over him for what he was advocating.
Kirby, chairman of a 2002 Senate report on reforming health care, said what really ails Canada’s medicare system is that it operates as a monopoly, producing inefficient and over-priced patient services.
His prescription for change is for procedures such as hip replacements and cataract surgeries to be tendered out to a marketplace of health-care providers, usually free-standing clinics that offer greater “productivity” than large, bureaucratic-heavy hospitals.
“There needs to be a weakening of the monopoly power,” he told a Manitoba Chambers of Commerce luncheon crowd.
And here is a particularily valid point that Tom makes:
Kirby’s words are normally associated with the ranks of Conservative politicians — ideas that usually draw sharp rebukes from unions, hysterical health-care lobby groups and Canada’s left-leaning media.
[...]
That’s because when you’re a Tory and you talk about more competition in health care, you’re accused of having a “hidden agenda” to gut medicare.
If you’re a Liberal and you talk about breaking up the health-care monopoly, you’re just “thoughtful.”