As he has been for more than a decade now—here he is saying so in 1999 and again in 2000 and again last year and again last month—Keith Martin continues to plead for health care reform.
As he has been for more than a decade now—here he is saying so in 1999 and again in 2000 and again last year and again last month—Keith Martin continues to plead for health care reform.
Martin writes that instead of “tinkering” with the system, governments must “modernize” the Canada Health Act to allow patients to “pay for care if they wish, in entirely separate facilities funded solely by the private sector.”
Under such a system, writes Martin, Canadians could go to these centres and pay for the medically necessary treatment out of their own pocket or through private insurance they have purchased. “By leaving the public system, they will be shortening the queues for those who are waiting. People using private facilities from time to time would also be free to access the public system that their taxes are paying for. Private facilities would act as a release valve and would in effect be subsidizing the public system. Physicians and other medical personnel would work in both systems.”