Sat, December 3, 2005
Honesty on health care
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper announced his party's wait time "guarantee" yesterday. It's not really a guarantee. It's more like a benchmark or a target for provinces to follow. But within the government monopoly system that we have in Canada, it's not a bad approach to take.
Harper says maximum wait times for medically necessary services should be established across Canada.
Failure to provide the service -- be it for hip surgery or MRI scans -- within that established timeframe would mean patients could demand government send them out of province to receive the treatment.
The cost of sending patients to other provinces or the U.S., Harper says, would be an incentive for provinces to meet their targets.
It's not a real guarantee because patients would have no recourse if care weren't provided within the maximum wait time
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