PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday March 20, 2006

Canada’s health care system under threat
Privatized health financing would cost more, and be bad for patients— new
book

EDMONTON—A new book warns that moves toward privatizing health care
financing would actually make the health care system more expensive, and
provide less choice to the majority of patients. The best path to better
health care for Canada is to strengthen and expand the public health care
system.

Diana Gibson, co-author of The Bottom Line: The Truth Behind Private Health
Insurance in Canada and Research Director of the University of Alberta’s
Parkland Institute says “Experience in Canada and other countries is clear:
privatized health financing costs more, not less.” A myriad of wasteful
administrative costs afflicts the private system: marketing, higher CEO
salaries, shareholder profits, and lacking economies of scale. The book
notes that private health insurance administrative costs are triple those
of public systems.

Ms Gibson says “If you look at the actual numbers, you will see that our
public system is financially sustainable: costs have not grown as a
proportion of GDP. Where the costs have grown – sharply – is where the
private sector is most involved: pharmaceuticals and private surgeries.”

Private health insurance systems are also worse for patients. Colleen
Fuller, co-author and President of PharmaWatch, says “the majority of
patients would have less choice, not more, under a private system.”
Experience with private health insurance in other countries and with
supplementary private insurance in Canada shows that many people are unable
to obtain adequate coverage. Those who are elderly, or have a history of
illnesses, are often rejected by private health insurers, leaving them with
no health insurance. Ms. Fuller notes that “almost half of personal
bankruptcies in the United States are due to medical costs.”

Private health insurance is also bad for the medical profession. American
doctors routinely lose 15-30% of their billings because private insurers
deny their claims. In Canada before medicare it was not uncommon for
doctors to lose tens of thousands of dollars per year in unpaid medical
bills.

The Bottom Line also clarifies the confusion that has been deliberately
created around the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent Chaoulli decision. The
Court’s decision actually does not apply outside of Quebec and does not
rule against public health care insurance. The ruling in fact leaves open a
wide range of avenues to reduce waiting times entirely within the public
system, options the Bottom Line authors explain further.

The book points out that adding a “parallel” private system of health care
financing would make public system waitlists longer, not shorter. A
for-profit system would drain medical practitioners and healthier patients
from the public system, while leaving the sicker and more costly patients
behind. The authors note that this would eventually result in calls to
“fix” the public system by fully privatizing it.

The book concludes with a 7-point agenda to protect the rights of patients
by strengthening and improving the public health financing system.


Media Contact:
Ricardo Acuña (780) 492-0417

This book is available direct from the Parkland Institute (780-492-8558)