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Bring on insurance


By Brian Day, Calgary Herald February 17, 2011

Re: "Private health insurance ensures you pay -lots," Naomi Lakritz, Opinion, Feb. 17.

Naomi Lakritz has fallen victim to the Friends of Medicare's propaganda machine. She should not feel badly -Ralph Klein suffered from the same affliction. Putting forth the U.S. system as the alternative to Canada's is their stale strategy, but Lakritz has fallen into the trap.

When the World Health Organization ranked all health systems, Canada's came in 30th, while the U.S. was 37th. If Calgary had the 30th-ranked hockey team, and was a top spender, would they look to the 37th team (that spent even more) as a model, or at the top two or three teams that spent the same or less?

Canada is the only developed country that outlaws private insurance and funding for care. A study that compared Canada with 29 European countries that have universal care, and hybrid public-private systems, ranked us 23rd in performance and last in value for money.

Canada's de facto monopoly in the funding and delivery of medical care means thousands of Albertans are suffering in pain and deteriorating on waiting lists as they wait for necessary care. I operate on up to five Albertans a week as they flee draconian laws that prevent citizens from buying private insurance, or spending their own aftertax dollars on their own health care.

Lakritz is correct that the U.S. model is not for us, but to ignore the experience of countries with universal care and mixed systems that outperform us in every way, and to argue for the status quo, is silly.

Brian Day, MD, Vancouver

Brian Day is medical director of the for-profit Cambie Surgery Centre.

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