|
|
Winter 2009 |
 |
|
Online Only
C M A N E W S
Health system resting
on faded laurels — it's time to earn new ones: CMA
|
|
|
File Photo |
|
Dr. Anne Doig
|
|
|
Canada’s health insurance system is routinely failing the country’s patients.
That was the blunt message CMA President Dr. Anne Doig delivered in Toronto on
November 25 during a sold-out address before the Economic Club of
Canada.
|
|
|
|
By Patrick Sullivan |
|
Canada’s health insurance system is
routinely failing the country’s patients.
That was the blunt message CMA
President Dr. Anne Doig delivered in Toronto on November 25 during a
sold-out address before the Economic Club of Canada (ECOC).
In a speech that focused on the
politicization of health care and the need to revamp a health care
system that has “remained suspended like a fly in amber” since the
passage of the Canada Health Act (CHA) 25 years ago, Dr. Doig
returned to the gospel the CMA has been preaching for the past five
years.
The message? A system that was
launched in the 1960s and updated in 1984 must be transformed or it
risks becoming, like that fly in amber, a museum piece.
“Notwithstanding all of its grand
values and strong ideals, it has failed to keep up with the times,”
Dr. Doig told the Economic Club of Canada.
And, said Dr. Doig, the health system
can no longer afford to rest on laurels earned by the switch to
universal care more than 40 years ago.
“Canada’s claim to fame is that it
provides universal coverage for medically necessary physician and
hospital services,” said Dr. Doig. “And that's a tremendous
achievement —
for the 1960s.”
What has changed? Dr. Doig noted that
when the CHA was passed in 1984, spending on physician and hospital
services accounted for 57 per cent of health spending. Today, the
total is 41 per cent.
“We have failed to engage in a debate
about including coverage for more than just physician and hospital
services,” said Dr. Doig. “We have also failed to recognize that
first-dollar coverage in a system funded solely by taxation demands
an increase in tax revenues if the system is to continue to meet the
needs of our citizens. If we are unwilling or unable to increase
taxes, me must debate alternative sources of funding, and we must
decide how broadly and how deeply to extend our publicly funded
insurance.”
In other words, said Dr. Doig, “we
must agree on the definitions of ‘'medical necessity,’ and we must
agree on the appropriate levels of societal responsibility for
medically necessary services.”
Her speech to the ECOC came less than
a week after Graham Scott, chair of the Canadian Institute for
Health Information, used the same venue to announce that health care
spending in Canada is expected to rise by 5.5 per cent
—
$241 per capita – in 2009.
Dr. Doig warned that the debate about
system transformation the CMA is calling for is required urgently
because the financial pressures cited by Scott will undoubtedly
continue to grow.
“As my generation of baby boomers age
they will be demanding more and better health care services. I've
heard this approaching wave described as the ‘silver tsunami,’ and
it threatens to engulf and drown our current capacity to provide
care. Boomers will not be content to wait for needed care, nor
should they. Nor, in fact, should anyone.”
Despite its urgent call for change,
Dr. Doig said the CMA —
and the medical profession —
remain committed to a “strong” and publicly-funded health system
that is based upon need, not ability to pay, but the system must be
transformed if it is to survive.
“Canadians get excellent care from
their doctors, nurses and other health care professionals,” she
said. “It is the system of health care insurance that fails
patients.” – CMA News
|
