> Prominent Tory wants more private delivery of medicare
> (FedElxn-Private-Healt)
> Source: The Canadian Press
> Oct 12, 2008 16:31
>
> By Tim Naumetz
>
> THE CANADIAN PRESS
>
> OTTAWA _ A Conservative candidate's suggestion that a private clinic be
> used as a model for health delivery across Canada prompted opposition
> charges that Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to expand for-profit
> health care outside the public system.
>
> Peter Kent made the comment during a recent campaign debate in Toronto's
> Thornhill riding.
>
> He subsequently insisted in an interview with The Canadian Press he was
> not backing the contentious notion of a separate system of private
> health care.
>
> His Liberal opponent in Thornhill and Green Party leader Elizabeth May
> countered that an expansion of private hospitals modeled after the
> Shouldice Hospital _ which profits in part by providing hernia surgery
> paid through the public system for Ontario residents _ would erode
> medicare and lead to a two-tier system.
>
> ``Thornhillers don't need to be reminded that the best example of
> efficient private delivery of public health care is right here in our
> own community,'' Kent said in the debate last week with Liberal
> incumbent Susan Kadis and other Thornhill candidates.
>
> ``We need more Shouldice institutes right across the country,'' he
> added. ``That's one way we'll be able to meet the challenges of health
> care''.
>
> The Liberals circulated Kent's statement by email and he confirmed them
> in a weekend interview.
>
> But Kent said he was ``not at all'' proposing a parallel private system.
>
> Kent, a former broadcaster who ran unsuccessfully for the Conservatives
> in the 2006 federal election, argued Shouldice provides hernia surgeries
> more efficiently than public hospitals at less cost.
>
> ``I think Shouldice is a perfect example of private health services
> delivered within the public health-care system,'' he reiterated. ``I
> think we have to repeat the success of Shouldice across the country''.
>
> Shouldice Hospital has long been a lightning rod for controversy in
> federal and provincial elections. Although it is privately owned, the
> Shouldice is publicly financed and patients are treated without extra
> charge.
>
> That controversy resurfaced again in this campaign when Prime Minister
> Stephen Harper took a thinly veiled jab at NDP Leader Jack Layton for
> undergoing a hernia operation there.
>
> ``I use the public health-care system, my family uses the public
> health-care system,'' Harper said during the English-language debate.
> ``And it turns out I was the only national leader that had exclusively
> used the health-care system.''
>
> A spokesman for Harper rejected the claims that Harper and the
> Conservatives want to establish a parallel private system in Canada.
>
> ``Our government's goal is to work with the provinces to ensure health
> care is paid for through the public system,'' said communications
> director Kory Tenecyke.
>
> The 89-bed Shouldice was established in 1945 and, because of its long
> history and specialized care, was exempted from a ban on private health
> services when Ontario introduced its public health act in 1973. It is
> now the only private hospital allowed under the act.
>
> The Ontario Health Insurance Plan pays surgery and ward costs at
> Shouldice for Ontario residents, who pay for the hospital's semi-private
> rooms themselves, according to the hospital's website.
>
> Other provincial plans pay only ward costs and part of the surgery costs
> for out-of-province Canadian patients, while U.S. patients pay the total
> bill either themselves, through private health insurance or through
> government medicaid for low-income patients.
>
> A research essay on the hospital published in 2000 by the Canadian Union
> of Public Employees accused Shouldice of engaging in ``cream skimming''
> by only accepting patients who require straightforward hernia
> operations, and referring more-costly complicated surgery to the public
> system.
>
> The essay says Shouldice makes a profit by focusing on basic surgery
> through OHIP, as well as treating U.S. and out-of-province patients.
>
> The union said at the time that Shouldice was an ``anomaly'' that did
> not represent a threat to the public system _ but May and Kadis
> disagree.
>
> They argue the establishment of similar hospitals and clinics would
> inevitably draw resources and talent from the public system and lead to
> private U.S. health-insurance involvement in the Canadian health system.
>
> ``The Conservatives are trying to implement a private health-care system
> by stealth,'' said Kadis, a breast-cancer survivor and former board
> member of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation who is running for
> re-election.
>
> May said the expansion of private hospitals in Canada would quickly
> spark a challenge to the public system by U.S. insurance companies under
> the North American Free Trade Agreement. She predicted U.S. firms would
> demand equal access to insurance coverage for patients using the
> hospitals.
>
> ``Whenever you have for-profit health delivery, you've opened yourself
> up to a NAFTA challenge,'' she said, pinning blame on Harper.
>
> ``He's the only leader who worked for an organization whose goal was to
> destroy our health-care system,'' May said - a reference to Harper's
> term as president of the National Citizens Coalition in the late 1990s.
> Insurance agent Colin Brown founded the right-wing organization in the
> 1960s to oppose the introduction of medicare.
>
>
>   

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