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| Medicare would end with Harper majority | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 29 2009, 01:38 PM (37 Views) | |
| 1755 | Oct 29 2009, 01:38 PM Post #1 |
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Medicare would end with Harper majority - Mike McBane Even now, the system is under extreme threats, with privatized clinics opening the door to trade challenges. Ottawa, October 23, 2009, HarperIndex.ca: Canada's Medicare system will be gone in a flash if Stephen Harper wins a majority, according to Mike McBane, national coordinator of the Canada Health Coalition. Harper's eerie silence around the US health care debate speaks volumes for his intent - and his caution about revealing it. McBane, in a wide-ranging interview with Straight Goods News, expressed alarm at Harper's "complete misrepresentation" to the world of Canada's central role in providing health care to its citizens. The federal government is charged with enforcing the Canada Health Act, he said, but, when asked by American reporters, he said health care is mostly a provincial responsibility in Canada. "He was denying the role of the federal government in Medicare," said McBane. "And of course failed, as well, to defend Canada from the misrepresentations" of right-wing critic in the USA. The dismantling of Medicare is already underway with Harper's "giving a nod and a wink to the provinces to go ahead and privatize the delivery of their system," said McBane. In British Columbia and Alberta and Quebec, so-called "experiments" in privatization have exposed the entire system to trade challenges from private US companies. Harper and his ideological cronies in the provinces have turned a blind eye to illegal billings by doctors in private clinics. Dr. Brian Day of Vancouver is the most prominent example. Day, the Past President of the Canadian Medical Association, is suspected of illegal billing by charging patients for insured services and then turning around and also charging the government of British Columbia. Additionally, all his patients have to sign a confidentiality agreements which amounts to "forcing them to sign a false statement," said McBane, who considers Dr. Day to be "fellow travellers in terms of being radical libertarians" with Stephen Harper. Day has called for the abolition of the Canada Health Act and Harper is former President of the National Citizens Coalition (NCC), which was founded expressly to oppose Medicare. "Stephen Harper knows he can't talk about this publicly and openly," McBane said, "Because he also can read the polls, and the polls show that about 86 - 88 percent of Canadians believe strongly in the public system. Even Newfoundland's Conservative premier Danny Williams "has said repeatedly that Medicare is not safe in the hands of Stephen Harper." McBane urged concerned Canadians to sign the Coalitions online Medicare protection pledge at Medicare.ca. The full text of this interview, as transcribed by Straight Goods News volunteer Anne Cumming, follows: Straight Goods News: The interviewee is Mike McBane, Coordinator of the Canada Health Coalition. The subject is Canada's health system and the attacks on it being waged by, in the context of the US health care debate, the silence of our Prime Minister and what may be happening below the radar with Canada's health system, so, I guess I'd ask, Mike, first, for your general comments on our federal government's quiescence around the American health care debate and what may be actually happening below the surface. Mike McBane: Those are good questions. I think that it's been, very dramatic, the silence from the Prime Minister on that whole US debate and the campaign to malign and stir up fear in the United States with misrepresentation of Canada's health care system, including saturation television ads funded by the insurance industry, featuring Dr. Brian Day from Vancouver. No rebuttal, no response from the government of Canada, no defence of the facts, and the truth about our, the success of Medicare in Canada. In fact, the Prime Minister had an opportunity in a press conference with Obama and the president of Mexico, earlier in June, and the question came up and Obama was talking more about Canada's health care system than the Prime Minister of Canada. The only thing the Prime Minister of Canada had to say about Medicare was that it had nothing to do with the government of Canada - it was a Provincial jurisdiction. Which is a complete misrepresentation. The Prime Minister of Canada has a statutory duty to enforce the Canada Health Act, which provides the national standards for Medicare in Canada. So he was denying the role of the federal government in Medicare. And of course failed, as well, to defend Canada from the misrepresentations. So it's very serious. SGN: I find that actually quite shocking when you think about it. The Canada Health Act is the Canada Health Act. Mike McBane: Yes, it's not provincial. It was passed in parliament unanimously in 1984; all parties, from all provinces, including the province of Quebec. So the notion that health care is exclusively provincial is absolutely false. To have national standards, the government of Canada used the spending power which is in our Constitution; there's nothing unconstitutional about the Canada Health Act. And to establish national standards, that's why you use the federal spending power. And any province is free to leave the money in Ottawa. If you don't want the government of Canada cheque, with health transfers, you don't have to take it. But if you do take the money and the health transfers, and every province takes the money, then you have to live by the standards, which include no extra billing, no user fees, no queue jumping. SGN: We know that Stephen Harper with all his political background - the Reform party, the National Citizens' Coalition - has always been an opponent of Medicare. Now he's staying mum on it. What is actually happening below the surface with the government, what's happening at Health Canada? Mike McBane: Well I mean, below the surface he's giving a nod and a wink to the provinces to go ahead and privatize the delivery of their system. And British Columbia and Alberta and Quebec are taking him up on that. They know that the dog in Ottawa will not hunt. There is no enforcement of the Canada Health Act. They're looking the other way and quietly telling them to go ahead and, according to the conservative platform, quote "experiment in private delivery" unquote. Now what they're not saying to the people of Canada is there's no experiment in privatized delivery. Under the free trade agreements, whether it's the WTO and the GATTs, or the NAFTA , Medicare is only protected to the extent it's non-commercially delivered. The minute you commercialize a service, you lose the protection from the trade agreements, so that's not an experiment. And that's very dishonest to describe it as an experiment in privatization, as he's encouraging them to do. And with that of course the concern is, it violates the Canada Health Act, because you can't have an economic, economically viable private system without charging people. And that's where you break the federal law. So we have illegal billing taking place, Canadians are being charged illegally by private for- profit clinics for medically insured services. Now that is strictly against the letter of the law in the Canada Health Act. And the government of Canada is not enforcing the law. SGN: Does the development of these private clinics, which tend to be specialized around particular medical procedures, does that open up all of Medicare, all the Canadian health system to challenge under NAFTA law? Mike McBane: Well, I mean, we've seen some pretty bizarre legal challenges to Medicare starting with Jacques Chaoulli, the Quebec doctor who challenged the constitutionality of Quebec health insurance laws and those laws were struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada, which was completely outrageous, because it was rejected at the Quebec court, thrown out for lack of evidence, and accepted at the Supreme Court without any evidence. So the lower court threw the case out because there was no evidence, and the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Jacques Chaoulli, without any evidence. So it was an ideological decision to break Medicare in Quebec. So those who are trying to commercialize are using that as a political weapon to try to make it look like governments have to open up the system to privatization, which is not the case. So it's misrepresentation of the Supreme Court ruling, but that's the kind of thing that's happening in terms of a very serious situation. Now, in addition to Jacques Chaoulli, there's also Dr. Brian Day who was part of the Supreme Court challenge, and now he's launched a new case emanating out of Vancouver in British Columbia, another charter challenge to the BC Medicare laws. SGN: Similar to the Quebec challenge. Mike McBane: Similar, yeah, based on the so-called charter rights for a doctor to charge whatever he wants to for whatever he wants. What's interesting about Dr. Brian Day, and people need to know this because these are facts filed by the government of British Columbia in the court case, Dr. Brian Day is suspected of illegal billing, that he is charging for insured services, charging the patients, turning around and also charging the government of British Columbia, and, in addition to that he is, he enforces his patients, any patient of Dr. Brian Day in the Cambie Clinic in Vancouver has to sign a confidentiality agreement which is actually forcing them to sign a false statement. The confidentiality agreement says that an insured service is not an insured service. So you falsify a statement in an attempt not to get fined by the government of British Columbia. So it's just outrageous, that kind of thing. And then on top of that, if that's not bad enough, breaking the law twice like that, he's also banned the provincial auditor from inspecting his books, which is again completely outrageous. If you get any public payment in Canada, you are subject to auditing, that's a basic principal of public administration, so it's basically, it's basically a state of lawlessness with Dr. Brian Day. That he is deliberately flaunting the law. Fortunately, the government of BC is going after him. SGN:Is there a connection between Brian Day and the politicians, the conservative politicians, Stephen Harper? Mike McBane: Well, I mean they're fellow travelers in terms of being radical libertarians. Dr. Brian Day has called for the abolition of the Canada Health Act. He does not believe in public health care, whatsoever. That was in his presentation to the Romano commission. He's since tried to deny that, but that's where he's coming from. And we know that the Prime Minister of Canada has said repeatedly that all taxes are bad. That's a pretty radical statement for a prime minister of a country to say, that all taxes are bad. What that means, then, is that all public programs are bad, and it also means that he doesn't believe in funding Medicare out of taxpayers' revenues, so it's pretty radical. They're both coming from the same place, but Stephen Harper knows he can't talk about this publicly, and openly, because he also can read the polls, and the polls show that about 86% - 88% of Canadians believe strongly in the public system, and the values of the public system, and in the fairness of the public system. They want that protected. They want the problems in the public system fixed; they don't want the system Americanized by opening up the private tier to those who have the money. SGN: I recently had a doctor's appointment and was chatting with the doctor's assistant, and she knew that I was a political reporter and asked me what was happening on the Hill... and I mentioned that how Stephen Harper has a long-term opposition to Medicare; she was totally surprised by that. She had no idea that Harper opposes Medicare. What do you think Canadians need to know before they go into another federal election? What do you think would happen if Stephen Harper got a majority government? Mike McBane: We would lose Medicare. I mean there's no question about it. Even the premier of Newfoundland, who is a Progressive Conservative, I say progressive, because Stephen Harper is not a Progressive Conservative, but Premier Danny Williams has said repeatedly, that Medicare is not safe in the hands of Stephen Harper, even now in the minority government, let alone with a majority. So if Progressive Conservative premiers are saying that, then we should be very vigilant, that we cannot trust any national program of Stephen Harper, he does not believe in national programs. Ironically, he's really in the wrong job. He doesn't believe in the role of the government of Canada in social policy. He thinks if anything has any value at all it should be left up to the hands of provinces, or oin some cases, governments should be out of it all together. And just the survival of the fittest individual, so this rigid, rugged Darwinian philosophy is really at the root of his formation, and so people need to know that Medicare is not safe with his government, that he is not to be trusted, and especially with a majority government, that we would see the system broken up, and the end of national standards, the end of a national program. SGN: Do you have any whistle blower sources at Health Canada who have been talking to you about program development or other things that they might know of that might indicate potential plans of a conservative government in waiting? Mike McBane: No, the whistle blowers that I know of have all been fired. You don't whistle blow at Health Canada and keep your job. They fired all the scientists, so that [does in] the notion that there's easy whistle blowing at Health Canada. But the thing is Health Canada is in the dark. Stephen Harper is running the files. He's appointed a caretaker minister who's not running anything. All the orders at Health Canada are coming directly from the Prime Minister's office. And right now the message is "Low-ball your role," and so that's why you never really hear about the health policy coming out of the government of Canada. They walked away from a lot of their commitments. There was [an] agreements from all of the First Ministers in 2004 [in ] the Health Accord, that there be a national pharmaceutical strategy, as an example. Stephen Harper's government has directed Health Canada to walk away from that... that working group. SGN: What is the Canada Health Coalition doing to alert Canadians to the lurking dangers of the complete destruction of Medicare as you've outlined? Mike McBane: Well, we've recently launched a new campaign website, which is Medicare.ca; and we're encouraging people to log on; and sign our Medicare protection pledge, send in your email and then you'll be part of our ongoing actions. And as part of that we're asking people to write to their Member of Parliament, insisting that the federal Canada Health Act be enforced in order to stop extra billing, which we know is going on in several provinces. So login to Medicare.ca and follow the links to this campaign, and get informed on what's happening, and the threats and take action. It does make a difference when you contact your federal Member of Parliament. |
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| 1755 | Oct 29 2009, 02:01 PM Post #2 |
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I don't trust Harper any further than I would be able to throw the bastard with a broken arm. He's a sleaze-ball neo-con with an ideological agenda of "free-market" liberalism that recent history has amply demonstrated led the U.S. to the present economic chaos and the inhumane treatment of its citizens by its ruling elites, the psychopathic corporations and big money. Our banking system is one of the most stable (and admired) in the world. Why? Because it is well regulatedand it operates not just for the selfish advantages of the wealthy elites, but for the economic stability and to the advantage of ALL Canadian citizens. Harper is a freaking menace to Canadians: he's a cold-blooded, stone-hearted ideologue with a not-so-well hidden agenda (read his speeches when he was president of the National Citizens Coalition (NCC) and it'll send a shiver up your spine). Any chance that he would eventually form a majority government with his rag-tag herd of former Reform knuckle-dragging Neanderthals is enough to send every Canadian with even half a brain scurrying to the polls to vote against the bastard. I know I will... 1755 |
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| xray | Oct 29 2009, 04:57 PM Post #3 |
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Re the first post. That's a heck of a read, so I wanted to see who this 'Canada Health Coalition' is all about. I did a search and found them listed in Wikipedia. Their definition: The Canadian Health Coalition is a left-leaning lobby group dedicated to preserving Canada's current Medicare system and to promoting the overall goal and policy of universal public health care. In 2002 and 2003 it was the leading national organization advocating that the Canadian federal government adopt the recommendations of the Romanow Report. Currently the Canadian Health Coalition and its provincial affiliate, the Ontario Health Coalition, have been spearheading a series of public plebiscites in Ontario, Canada over the provincial government's controversial plans to provide hospital services through public-private partnership (P3) rather than traditional public funding. Left leaning..... hmmm. |
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| 1755 | Oct 29 2009, 09:38 PM Post #4 |
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The P3 is a frigging scam: there is no way a government or public entity can gain from a "Public Private Partnership", for the following reasons: 1) A public entity (federal or provincial governments) can borrow money for any project at a LOWER interest rate and for a LONGER period of time than any private enterprise; so financing a bridge, an arena or a highwaywill always, in the end, cost more if a private entity borrows the money and the payer will always be the same: the public will pay with their taxes; 2) A public entity has no obligation to make a profit, hence, whatever amount would theoretically go as PROFITS to the stockholders or owners of the private entity would instead be ENTIRELY devoted to the public project; on the other hand, the "profit motive" inevitably drives the private enterprise to cut services while raising their prices: think of the "privatization" of N.S. Power or the Alberta Liquor Commission: prices shot up while services diminished... 3) Efficiency, as history has amply demonstrated, is NOT the exclusive domain of private enterprise: think of Canada's PUBLIC Medicare program with it's 5% overhead versus...the 20% to 25% of the American PRIVATE health care system; Question: Which provinces in Canada have the lowest electricity rates? Answer: Manitoba and Québec, both PUBLIC utilities, well managed and providing hefty dividends to both provinces... So what if the "Canadian Health Coalition is a left-leaning lobby group dedicated to preserving Canada's current Medicare system": more power to them!!! Much better for Canadian citizens and taxpayers than right-wing dorks like Stephen Harper , who would just love to dismantle it just to please their neo-con wing-nut conservative "friends in high places"...even though 85% of Canadians are quite pleased with our health care system... Think about it x-ray... 1755 |
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| xray | Oct 30 2009, 10:27 AM Post #5 |
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Yes, I sure wouldn't want to lose medicare. Do you know what Iggy says on the subject? |
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| 1755 | Oct 30 2009, 08:26 PM Post #6 |
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Iggy's on the floor on all fours trying to pick up his senses after he got whacked by his Liberal base for attempting to defeat George W. Harper in a non-confidence vote this Fall while the Liberal party is still in the doldrums and his political staff is still as misinformed and misguided as Joe Who's was before he "miscounted" the number of votes in the House on his finance bill in 1979... Iggy will NEVER, NEVER, EVER attempt to even THINK about dismantling Medicare: the Liberals have a way of fitting their wayward leaders with cement boots when the get too far from the centre of Canadian politics... |
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| xray | Oct 31 2009, 10:13 AM Post #7 |
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No one is a 'definite' for me. I will be watching them up until it's time to vote. Even then, it's the lesser of the evils.  (I was amazed the way Iggy dropped the ball... as it were. There needs to be big changes with who he's listening to..  )
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| Sweets | Nov 17 2009, 08:31 AM Post #8 |
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I wouldn't care if Iggy had a brass ass and castors on his tits any Canadian that would vote for a jew parachuter from wall St has $hit for brains IMO -- aye er eh? |
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7:03 PM Nov 30
