Private health care won’t mean shorter line-ups

Private health care pushers like Alberta Premier Ralph Klein point to growing waiting lists as the ultimate justification for a two-tier system.

But examining wait lists won’t bolster the case for private health care. Because recent studies show that far from reducing wait times, private health care can mean even longer line-ups.

A Manitoba study found that wait times for cataract surgery for doctors operating in both the private and public sectors was 130 per cent longer than for those operating only in the public sector — up to 13 weeks longer.

In Ralph Klein’s home province, a study by the Alberta branch of the Consumers’ Association of Canada found that those scheduled for cataract surgery waited the longest when their opthamologist had a foot in both public hospitals and private clinics — up to a year, compared to an average six week wait for the public system.

Coincidentally, the private eye clinics in Calgary offer ‘extras’ such as better replacement lenses and more flashy surgical supplies and diagnostics — for an ‘extra’ $750. But what’s an ‘extra’ in Calgary is most often provided without charge at public hospitals in Edmonton.

A team of eminent health policy analysts and researchers for Health Canada recently concluded that, "Despite repeated calls for private financing to relieve an over-taxed public system, we could find no evidence, from Canada or elsewhere, to support the notion that this would be an effective solution.

"Indeed, if anything, the evidence points in the opposite direction — where we find private funding, we find generally worse access for publicly funded patients, particularly in cases where physicians are permitted to serve both public and private patients."

Wait lists are a frustrating, often life-threatening situation. A result of under-funding, the solution is more complex than simply re-injecting money into a system in chaos. However, it is clear the answer to growing waiting times does not lie with the private sector. Answers can and will be found in the public sector, protecting Medicare from further for-profit damage.