Dear Editor:
Re: Public vs. private health debate on, Burnaby NOW, July 25.
Well, in my opinion there is no debate, and Dr. Day, who runs a for-profit-surgery clinic, should know that any person who wants to purchase health services is free to do so. Anyone can go to Dr. Day's surgery and obtain services if Dr. Day pays all the costs, including the doctor's salary.
What he can't do, according to the Canada Health Act and the Federal Provincial Health Accord, is get a doctor for free and have the doctor bill the publicly funded non-profit system for services. Nice work if you can get it, and obviously that is what has been happening.
Ample evidence has been gathered by the B.C. Health Coalition and others who have pressured the Medical Services Commission to act to stop extra-billing patients, and I would say the public health system as well
It is also a good deal for people with the money to pay extra to get ahead of everyone else (also in pain) and take advantage of the public money that pays the majority of their costs.
Since the same doctors and nurses practice in both, it can also increase the waittime for others.
There is a greater worry for those who want to maintain our publicly funded and administered access-for-all core health system. It is the present necessity to begin work on a new Health Accord in 2014 between the provinces and the federal government.
The Harper Conservative government has failed to attend the last two sessions, leaving the provinces to discuss a new accord on their own. If the feds pull out, there could eventually be 11 different systems, opening the door wide to privatefor-profit health delivery governed in part by private health insurers as it is in the United States.
Elsie Dean, Burnaby
