"The models that produce superior results and cost less than Canada’s monopoly-insurer, monopoly-provider system have: user fees; alternative, comprehensive, private insurance; and private hospitals that compete for patient demand… The overwhelming evidence is that Canada has a comparatively underperforming system of health care delivery, and needs to emulate the more successful models available elsewhere amongst those countries that offer their citizens universal access to health care."

It is worth to share ideas and compare health systems among different countries, however we must also recognize that the ranking of health systems doesn’t provide dogmatic conclusions as per which system we must emulate to have a better health system.

I remember for instance when some years ago I pointed out the irrelevancy of Saskatchewan Health’s policy to rank its provincial health districts in terms of their efficiency in providing different health care services. At that time I stated that such ranking didn’t provide the health districts with the course of actions needed to better their services.

Today with this Fraser Institute’s study, the ranking of Canada as one of the worst health care provider within the OECD countries is not an evidence that we must emulate (or copycatting) other systems. And in fact it is my contention that our health care system is undeperforming mostly because of mismanagement rather than the lack of user fees or the lack of private insurance or the lack of private hospitals that compete for patient demand.

We have written a lot about the incompetence of our Saskatchewan politicians, the incompetence of our health care administrative gurus and the fraudulent studies of our health researchers. The realization of this widespread corruption induced me to label our Saskatchewan Health Care as the Mississippi Burning of the Year 1964.

Today I have realized that this widespread corruption is not limited to our province of Saskatchewan, it is world wide and it is called Free Market, a market of deliberate confusion where big businesses have taken over people and where pigs fly. And this deliberate confusion has been camouflaged as instant democracy by our elitist leaders as they keep bombarding us common people with opinion polls/surveys.

So we have the health survey conducted last May/June by the Canadian magazine Today’s Parent ranking Saskatchewan as the worst province and then we have the health survey conducted last July by the polling firm Ipsos-Reid concluding that Canadians have given their doctors and the overall health-care system high marks and that Saskatchewan residents give high marks to health care.

Thank you Fraser Institute for yet another dogmatic inconclusive study.

References

Past work by Mario deSantis and pertinent articles published by Ensign

Canada Spends the Most on Health Care Among OECD Countries but Ranks Low on Key Health Indicators Dr. Michael Walker, Executive Director, The Fraser Institute, Release Date: August 19, 2002 http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=nr&id=475 http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/chapterfiles/Executive%20Summary-pages1-6.pdf#1

Saskatchewan Health Care: Mississippi Burning of the Year 1964 By Mario deSantis, February 26, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2000/desantis125/firefighters.html

Cross-Country Checkup. Which province delivers the best health care to kids and families? By Judy Waytiuk and Steve Brearton, Today’s Parent, June 2002 http://www.todaysparent.com/health_safety/article.jsp?cId=989384

Report card gives health care good marks Chris Morris, August 19, 2002 Canadian Press http://chealth.canoe.ca/health_news_detail.asp?news_id=4384

Sask. residents give high marks to health care By Anne Kyle, The Star Phoenix, Saskatoon, August 19, 2002