BC Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair is very worried that we are "in danger of becoming a province where medicare dies." According to a piece in Kamloops This Week, Sinclair criticizes the BC Liberals $10 million Conversation on Health as wasted effort stating that, "Within the public system we can fix this. If we don't fix it at all, it will start to crumble."
He's half right!
Despite the fact that health care funding has been increased again, this time by another 7.3% up to a staggering $13.1 billion annually, Sinclair seems to continue to advocate for more spending claiming that this is the only way to prevent those nasty private health-care clinics from taking over. Not surprisingly, he makes no mention of any remote possibility that we may in fact be the greatest threat to "What Canadians are proud of - a public health-care system..."
Interesting... Has Mr. Sinclair or anyone else within the BC Fed ever even considered the faint possibility that were it not for our own bad habits, we may not need health-care (public or private) as much? Lets consider this first deadly sin... Obesity.
Not convinced?
How about this one... Tobacco use. While British Columbia has the lowest rate of tobacco use in the country, about 6000 people in this province will die this year, due to tobacco related illness. Health-care costs associated with the treatment of tobacco use... approximately $1.25 billion per year! But wait,
To round of these three mortal evils we end with Sedentary Lifestyle. This is the result for those of us content to sit and watch the world go by from the comfort of our couches and recliners (usually with a cigarette in one hand and a bag of chips in the other). Physical inactivity is a proven major contributor to such wonderful things as coronary artery disease, stroke, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, breast cancer and osteoporosis. 38% of British Columbian's are not active enough to achieve any of the benefits associated with active lifestyle... and what does our laziness cost the province (or us) each year in terms of health care? About $573 million!
Has anyone been keeping up with the math so far?
Jim Sinclair, by ignoring our own contributions seems to be saying that this is OK and that the solution to saving a system that is in big trouble is to continue to throw money at it. The fact is that so much money has been thrown at health care lately that much of it isn't even sticking anymore. He cites overflowing hospitals and long surgery wait lists as proof that we need to spend more less we become overrun by private health-care clinics, but I can't help but think that Jim Sinclair, the BC Federation of Labour and many other critics of the Conversation on Health have somehow missed the most important piece to the puzzle.
Our public health-care system is indeed crumbling, but its not because of private health-care. Its crumbling because we've all dog-piled on top of it and we're too heavy and out of breath to get off.
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1 comment:
You're right we are to blame. If money was the solution to our health care problems we would have solved the problem years ago.
We are never going to stop death. Unfortunately, every single one of us will not get out of here alive. We are all going to die eventually.
Nearly two-thirds of all health-care dollars spent on us during our lifetimes is spent during the last six months of our lives (mid-1990s data). Much of this "health care" falls into the category of 11th hour heroics poorly supported by objective medical judgment and family members guilt or fundamentalist religious beliefs.
If just a quarter of late-in-life (last 6 months) health care costs can be eliminated we could reduce BC's health care costs by over $2 billion.
Political issues have largely prevented pursuing this issue in the past. But as health-care costs grow to ever-larger fractions of the GDP, and the futility of stop-gap measures of governments continue to increase funding become ever clearer, and as frustrations and anger mount, the tide will likely turn.
Change is coming...and it's coming if you want it or not.
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