Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowboy89
There isn't a magical ideological bullet here where private solutions answers concerns simply due to inefficiencies. Due to high barriers and costs to enter the business, the Health industry wouldn't perform competitavely on price as other businesses do. With a profit incentive most definately there will be more capacity for health services. Just don't think that you won't have to pay for it one way or another (With your health if you can't pay or don't want to pay, or with your wallet if you do.)
Converesely we should look at the big picture if you want to compare England and Switzerland to Alberta. I'd ask for you to show me where someone who makes $250K/year can pay a marginal blended federal and provincial tax rate of 39%, doesn't have to pay for health care on top of taxes, and lives in a province or country that has $200 Billion in a soveriegn wealth fund from Oil and Gas riches. The Wildrose would would have you believe you can live in that province, but the reality is that you have to pick two of the three (And thanks to Oil and Gas we're very fortunate for it to be possible to get 2 of 3 of these outcomes). Either pay up for your private health care, have government infuse pretty much all of their O&G royalties into expenditures, or deal with higher taxes.
BTW this is coming from someone who probably will vote Wildrose because maybe the Wildrose is the lesser of two evils considering that PCs have chosen in the past to go with the 'spend all of the royalties' solution and now want to tax more with the caveat that you have to trust them that they'll properly manage the building of the the Heritage Fund and not pork barrel it out to 41 years worth of friends and civil servants that are owed favors (Fat chance!!).
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I can see where you are coming from but I don't necessarily agree with your points. When we rank health outcomes versus what we pay for inputs, Canada ranks dead last when compared with pretty much all of central Europe. The good news is our outcomes are good, the bad news is we pay far more than any of those countries. The only main difference being we support a wholly owned government monopoly on health services whereas Europeans have accepted a mixed private/public partnership.
Government run businesses and services all generally lack motivation to eliminate waste. They are all incredibly expensive compared to private endeavors. Our Canadian Health system seems to follow these general rules as well.
I don't think there can by any rational argument why we shouldn't follow the European model as advocated by the Wildrose Party and try to improve healthcare without bankrupting the province.