By Mario deSantis, March 10, 2000

After writing the article "The highest priority to cure health care: stop mismanaging it!(1)" I was happy to realize that more people are pointing a portion of the blame for our crumbling Medicare system to our worldwide renown health economists, that is Professors Barer, Evans, Rachlis, Lewis and Stoddart, the assembled authors of the paper "The Deklein and Fall of Canadian Medicare?(2) " I have portrayed these economists as ideological demagogues fighting for the survival of public care in Canada, and I referred to their works as the assembly products of their linear thinking mentality which can be well described by the saying "nine women cannot make a baby in one month." This opinion is certainly mine, but more and more people are recognizing that our Big Brains(3)--most politicians, academicians and bureaucrats--are incompetent assets(4).

Health Reform in Saskatchewan have been carried out by our Big Brains, and at no time our professional caregivers, nurses or medical doctors, have been active participants of such reform. Now, how could these Big Brains expect to reform a health system disconnected with our care givers and health care consumers at large? It took a lot of imagination of our Big Brains, and their knowledge and hypocrisy is so grandiose that they have the right answer to any problem at any time, they just raise a finger to the sky(5) and call an expert either from the East, or from the South, or from the West, or from the North or from whatever(6). But more than imagination these Big Brains used more taxpayers' money to reform a health care system and come up with a gambling casino.

I am very pleased to report below excerpts of letters published by The Globe and Mail(7) as a testimony to the incompetency of our sophisticated and worldwide renown health economists:

"I agree that Canadians are not getting the health care they want, but who has been controlling that health care for the past 35 years?... the concerns and advice of the caregivers are devalued and ignored, replaced by a system controlled by health-care economists" -----By Derrick G. Morris, Kamloops, B.C., March 9, 2000

"They point out that a certain type of eye implant costs $25 to manufacture, but surgeons charge hundreds of dollars to put this device into the body, implying that there's a whole lotta gouging goin' on.... I'd like to propose a similar algorithm for calculating their own efficiency. Take the cost of the textbooks they used in their student days -- and oh, what the heck, throw in the salaries of the profs for the lectures they sat through -- and then compare it to what we taxpayers are paying them now as professors" -----By Marc A. Schindler, Spruce Grove, Alta, March 9, 2000

"The authors of this piece have raised the usual spectre of the evils of privatized medicine... Rather than decrying the possibility of rampant commercialism or unrestrained capitalist greed, why don't they put forward solutions to the problems?" -----By James P. Waddell, Toronto, ON, March 9, 2000

"After reading through this collaborative effort of five -- count 'em, five -- university professors putting the case for 'business as usual' with respect to our crumbling state-controlled health-care system, I found myself overwhelmed with a feeling of sadness that we have entrusted the education of our children to such unthinking ideologues" -----By lan Randell, Victoria, B.C., March 9, 2000

Endnotes

Quote by Donella Meadows "challenging a paradigm is not a part-time job. It is not sufficient to make your point once and then blame the world for not getting it. The world has a vested interest in, a commitment to, not getting it. The point has to be made patiently and repeatedly, day after day after day" ftp://sysdyn.mit.edu/ftp/sdep/Roadmaps/RM1/D-4143-1.pdf http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/default.htm

General reference: Articles by Mario deSantis published by North Central Internet News

1. The highest priority to cure health care: stop mismanaging it! By Mario deSantis, March 7, 2000

2. The Deklein and Fall of CanadianMedicare?, article available at http://www.chspr.ubc.ca

3. Healthcare Payroll and SAHO's Big Brains, by Mario deSantis, November 20, 1999

4. Intellectual CAPITAL: The New Wealth of Organizations, by Thomas Stewart, Doubleday/Currency, 1997 http://members.aol.com/thosstew/bio.html

5. Pat Atkinson: raising the finger and turning healthcare to a gambling casino, by Mario deSantis, February 3, 2000

6. The Big Question for Saskatchewan Health Care: Underfunding or Mismanagement? By Mario deSantis, March 3, 2000

7. The clueless professors, The Globe and Mail, March 9, 2000 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/hubs/health.html