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October 15th, 2000. "The Reason for the Failure Of the Canadian Medical System." The front page of The National Post, Thursday's edition, bore this headline: "Half of all Radiology Labs Outdated." The sub-headline was, "Equipment so dangerous that even Cambodian refugee camp doesn't want it." Another column on the front page reads, "64.2 billion," government money (raised by taxes) is being put into the Canadian medical system such that, "other programs pay price as the provinces hit the 'Medicare wall.'" Another headline of a column on the front page reads, "As waiting lists get longer, our doctors grow downcast." For those persons and families that have had to turn to the Canadian medical system, in the past few years, the above quoted headlines will be of no surprise. No surprise, either, to any person who first comprehends the existence of this fact: the medical system in Canada is purely socialistic.1 This must be coupled with the facts as reflected in the headlines of The National Post. Natural law and history is then brought to bear on these obvious facts. As for natural law, this much we know for sure, one must proceed in harmony with it or suffer the consequences (see "Cause and Effect"). Being guided by history, relatively recent history, we shall determine that socialism, whether employed totally or partially within a country: -- does not work.2 What does work are the free forces of the market system.3 Apply the same principles to the finding of facts one will make in any enterprise where the government has no, or little involvement. Take the food industry (and food, it should be successfully argued, is more essential than medical services; so, thank God, they haven't decided to supply "free" food). Is it not one of the most marvelous sights one sees when walking through a typical grocery store here in Canada. The selection, the freshness, the price, is it not all marvelous. Is it not marvelous, the polite and immediate responses one gets from those who run these grocery stores. That we should have to wait in the checkout line at seven o'clock on Friday evening for five minutes, is, the worst of it. Fresh chickens for three or four dollars, firm potatoes for pennies apiece: all brought to the people of Canada by the free market, the free market which is allowed to operate: on the farms, in the transportation industry and in the wholesaling and retailing of groceries. Yet, when it comes to medical services, we shun the market: we adopt a system that has brought about ruin to entire countries, a system (central, absolute, and top down) which has never worked and which cannot work.4 ___________________ NOTES: 1 The Canadian medical system is run by the Canadian government, from top to bottom. Private enterprise has been effectively outlawed. No doctor works for himself, he works for the government. Private hospitals and clinics are outlawed; so, too is medical insurance. That which is not considered to be "real medicine," is not run by the government; thus, there has been a huge build up of herbal doctors, massage therapists, spiritualists, and alike. Because people are effectively denied timely and effective medical services, they flock to the "quacks" who will see them, same day. Thus, the government run medical system not only has dried up real medicine, it has resulted in a pernicious system of nostrum-mongery. 2 See my essay, "The Siren's Song." Vote chasing politicians, here in Canada, have promised "free" medical care. The "64.2 billion" to which The National Post headline referred, is money, our tax money, that the Canadian federal government (read the clique of "elected" politicians) has been holding back on, for the past couple of years and are now magnanimously giving to the hospitals and the doctors through the various provincial accounts, just, on the eve of a federal election here in Canada. Quite aside from the argument that a government owned and operated medical system cannot possibly work, -- it is a great danger to the democratic process, as it gives the government huge spending powers which it uses to sustain the reigning bureaucracy, both political and medical. 3 See "On Competition & The Market"; and see my treatment of the Market, within my essay, "Nature Of Man." 4 For further, see my past commentary, "Medical Services." [Top] [Archives] [To Blupete's Essays] [Thoughts & Quotes of blupete] [Home] Peter Landry 2000 (2019)