Battle over healthcare moves to the frontburner
Posted May 1, 2018 6:24 am.
Last Updated May 1, 2018 10:09 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The debate over healthcare is ramping up today.
A right-wing policy group is out with new research, claiming the Canada Health Act is broken and we need to fix it. The report comes the same day advocates of the public system plan to target private healthcare providers accused of extra billing.
Members of the BC Health Coalition plan on delivering a symbolic invoice to the False Creek Surgical Centre in Vancouver and the Okanagan Surgical Health Centre in Kelowna this morning.
The $15.9 million being “invoiced” is the same amount the federal government recently clawed back from private clinics for charging patients for procedures that were actually covered by the public system.
“The public shouldn’t have to foot the bill for unlawful fees,” says the group on its website.
Meanwhile, a new report from the Fraser Institute, a right-wing policy group known for its research that often looks at the public system as failing us, says we need more flexibility in the healthcare system.
Researchers claim the rules around the Canada Health Act are too vague and provinces should be allowed to make decisions that could address long wait times without fear the feds will pull funding.
“…[decentralize] decision making by encouraging provinces to be less reliant on federal transfer payments, and allow greater policy flexibility for provincial governments, which are directly accountable to patients and payers,” the report argues. “Doing so would bring greater accountability to the health-care system and free the provinces to innovate and experiment with policies commonly found in other countries with more successful universal health-care systems. The likely result would be improved timely access to quality care regardless of a patients’ ability to pay.”
