EDITORIAL: Time to reform our health care

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While faith in Canada’s health-care system hasn’t been shattered because of its performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Leger-Postmedia poll last week suggests we’re ready for major changes in how it is delivered.

For example, 55% of those surveyed said they would “support more private sector delivery of health care procedures, so long as universality is maintained,” compared to 29% opposed and 16% undecided.

That’s considered the third rail of Canadian politics because any suggestion of increased private funding of medicare (30% of the system is already privately funded) instantly draws charges of advocating two-tier, American-style health care.

Perhaps that’s why “59% of Canadians (surveyed) are not confident political leaders will make reforms to ensure that the system is able to meet future challenges.”

Despite that, responses to the Leger survey of 1,519 Canadian adults from Feb. 25-27, who are part of an online panel, suggest people are ready for change.

Three-quarters of those surveyed said the pandemic “provided evidence meaningful health-care reforms are needed” and made them “question if Canada’s system is truly one of the ‘best in the world.'”

Almost four out of five said, “we need to be more open-minded to significant reforms to our health-care system.”

Most haven’t lost faith in medicare — 59% said the health-care system, which is delivered by the provinces, performed well during the pandemic.

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But the reality is that, excluding the U.S., many developed countries with universal health-care systems today have more efficient systems with better health outcomes than our own, in part because they’ve more sensibly integrated private funding into the mix.

The Fraser Institute has reported that despite relatively high expenditures paid by Canadians for health care, we rank 25th out of 26 comparable Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries in acute-care beds per 1,000 population (2.0), 26th out of 28 in doctors (2.8), 14th out of 28 in nurses (10.4), 24th out of 28 in psychiatric beds (0.37), 21st out of 24 per million population in MRIs (10.5) and 22nd out of 26 in CT scanners (15.2).

As we emerge from the pandemic, our politicians need to keep an open mind about reforming health care. Most Canadians appear to be ready for it.