Canadians Back ‘Public Solutions' to Improve Care, Poll Findsby André Picard
An overwhelming
86% of Canadians favour “public solutions” for bolstering medicare, according to a new poll. The survey, commissioned by the Canadian Health Coalition, is being released Wednesday as a pre-emptive strike.
That is because the Canadian Medical Association, at its coming general council meeting, plans to stage a high-profile discussion about transforming medicare, and it will release its own poll on support for privately delivered care.
Michael McBane, national co-ordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition, said he has no doubt that poll will show strong support for
“privatization schemes” but the “language used in the CMA survey was so vague and misleading that its results cannot possible be interpreted as support for more
for-profit medicine.”He said that the outgoing CMA president, Robert Ouellet, operates private medical imaging clinics and is promoting a personal agenda that is out of step with Canadian values.
“Canadians have told us they want to keep our health-care system public and to improve it with made-in-Canada solutions.
They also have told us they flat-out reject Dr. Ouellet's proposal to provide us with American-style two-tier medicine,” he said.In fact, Dr. Ouellet has explicitly rejected a U.S.-style system. In a recent speech launching a new campaign entitled Time To Transform Healthcare, he said:
“The U.S. is a very poor performer. Why look to a system that ranks below ours for lessons?”http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/12-10
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