Who Will Stop The Tier Mongering Of Canadian Healthcare?

TheFightOfTheCentury
UniversalityVille


Will it be the doctors?

Don't hold your breath.

After all the current president of the Canadian Medical Association is, himself, essentially a tier monger in a wait-list suit.

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Well, how about lawmakers, you know the people who read the poll numbers that tell them pretty much everyday that Universal Healthcare is the top priority for the Canadians who elected them?

Are you joking?

In fact, here in British Columbia our elected officials are actively working to keep anyone from enforcing drive-by-tierings of the Medicare Act.

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So, who will do it?

Who will take on the tier mongers who have all the prestige, the pols, and some would say a big heap of American Health Insurance moola, behind them?

And how will they possibly do it?

Well, it looks like it's going to be nurses.

And they're going to try and do it through, gasp!, the courts.

Paul Willcocks has the full, in depth 'worth-reading-in-it's-entirety' story:

It's been one of the great frauds in B.C. Governments have proclaimed the importance of equal access to health care, while ignoring the expansion of clinics that offer special treatment for those who can pay.

The clinics and surgical centres are routinely breaking the law, both the Canada Health Act and the province's Medicare Protection Act. It's illegal to charge a premium for services covered by the Medical Services Plan.

You can buy optional treatment, like cosmetic surgery.

But you can't pay extra so your son is treated ahead of some other, sicker child.

{snippety-do-dah}

The nurses' union filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court against the attorney general and Medical Services Commission for not enforcing the Medicare Protection Act and allowing two-tier care.

The government argued the case should be tossed out. It was none of the union's business whether the government enforced the law, the lawyers said.

{snippety-do-dahing-again}

(B.C. Supreme Court Justice) Justice Stephen Kelleher disagreed. "What the union is doing in pursuing this position is well within what a democratic trade union normally does in our society," he ruled. "The courts have recognized that unions have a legitimate role to play in engaging in broader political and social processes of society."


This is important stuff.

On a whole lotta levels.

Thank the Goddess for the nurses.

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Of course, a story of this import received scant more attention than wire service coverage in most pro-media. An exception was Charlie Smith's piece in the soon to be renamed Salish Sea Strait.
Hey, off topic but.....littler e. asked a stumper today....why, given what allegedly happened is it called 'Good' Friday anyway?

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