Canadian Conservative Parties: There is so much you do not understand about Canadians, it's hard to know where to begin, but I will start with health care.
You see, most Canadians really treasure our universal health care. We are happy to pay taxes knowing that we and our neighbours and Canadians across the country can access the care they need, regardless of their ability to pay.
We are proud that no one in Canada goes bankrupt paying medical bills, and people aren't dying because they are too poor to visit a doctor.
We like to think our doctors and other health care professionals are doing medicine because they truly want to help people; not because they want to live in a mansion and drive a Ferrari.
We are deeply uncomfortable with anyone who tries to profit from the misfortune of another. In the US, this would be private health corporations, private hospitals, private clinics, and insurance companies.
Health care should be about making people well, or at least comfortable. It should not be about making other people rich. In the US, the healthcare industry is about making money, not helping sick people get well.
Certainly some healthcare workers do care about patients. But the industry, as a whole, could just as easily be making widgets. It's just that healthcare is more lucrative.
When the discussion is focused on return on investment, market share/market segmentation, competitive advantages, growth strategies, etc, you are talking about a for-profit enterprise. This is a thing that exists to generate wealth for investors.
This is completely a separate thing from providing compassionate care to people who need it. This thinking cuts corners to increase profits, and results in withdrawal of services from unprofitable areas (remote, low population, poor).
The insertion of profit as the metric of success increases the cost of everything. Having multiple providers competing for the same products (gloves, syringes, sutures, pharmaceuticals, etc) makes the costs of those products rise.
Hospitals and clinics will compete to get the best staff. This increases their cost of doing business. Marketing of services adds to the overhead. All these costs get passed on to the consumer - you with your ailment or injury.
A two-tier system would syphon off the most qualified practitioners, leaving those who lack the resources to pay with a much lower standard of care. One type of care for the wealthy and another for the poor.
Here is a video explaining some of the differences between a US for-profit kind of health care, & Canada's universal health care. Note: one big criticism, the exclusion of pharmaceuticals from health care, is on track to be resolved with pharmacare.
If that video made you feel discouraged about our universal health care, check out the situation in the US. Really, watch this one for sure!
We Canadians see what is going on in the US, with people trying to pay for their surgery or chemo or childbirth with a go-fund-me. The health care industry in the US sees Canada as a massive untapped market from which they could reap even greater profits.
We don't want that. Canadians, by and large, do not want to be exploited by for-profit health corporations.
Conservative parties in Canada are lobbied by healthcare and insurance corporations. They also have a fundamental belief that healthcare should provide someone with a profit. There should be investors and user pay, not this pooling of resources we have now.
This is one key area in which 1/3 of Canadians and one kind of political party differs radically from the majority of Canadians. So, Mssrs Scheer, Kenney, Ford, Moe, and Pallister, you and your friends need to keep your mitts off our healthcare!
I would like to add, as a post-script, that you cannot sell your blood in Canada. You can in the US. Right now it is prohibited in Canada to sell blood, organs, tissue, sperm, eggs or embryos. The reason for this is simple.
Allowing people to sell bits of their bodies creates the potential for dire exploitation of those with little or no means, and creates the possibility of them negatively impacting their health and well-being just to get a few dollars.
Corporations have no feelings. They exist to create wealth. Therefore it is not surprising that some are encroaching into the area of paying for plasma. And it is a thin edge of the wedge.
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