I’m an advocate for a public healthcare system. Why? There’s no incentive to have a healthy population when the whole system is privatized. Instead of preventing illnesses and tackling health issues at the root, a privatized healthcare system will look at treatment rather than prevention. There’s no money to be made if the population is healthy.
However, a public system should not equate an inefficient system. Unfortunately, that’s how it is in Quebec. Endless bureaucracy, inefficient staff, and an entrenched culture of inefficacy is what we have. Make no mistake, there are very hard working individuals, but the system as a whole seems to promote inefficient practices.
Similarly to how a private system has no incentive to deal with the root cause of illnesses, our public system and government seems to have no interest in dealing with the root cause of our highly expensive healthcare. In fact, rather than enforcing better management practices and looking at strategically cutting costs, our Quebec government, with the help of our Finance Minister Raymond Bachand, have decided to “solve” the problem by increasing fees and raising taxes; A recipe for disaster if you want my opinion. The new budget calls for a 2% increase in the sales tax, added healthcare fees, and the possible introduction of a deductible.
So tell me this dear government, why not even attempt at reducing cost from within rather than pushing on the problem to the population? Here’s one simple idea, let’s put in place performance based management like corporations do? Honestly, let’s look at the healthcare system as what it is, a large system, and introduce operational excellence and various cost cutting measures. Stop avoiding the issue and address it once and for all. Will the 2% increase in sales tax really solve the problem? To me it sounds more like it will hinder the economic recovery.
Sometimes it feels like our ministers earn their positions by picking a random title in a hat. Look at that, they’re really proud of themselves. By the way, insulting another culture is not a proper way of defending your budget Mr. Bachand. See the full story on CBC here .
