The wonder of socialized medicine. In Canada, it’s not working and the private sector is beginning to show it’s ability to make things a lot better.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 23 — The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada’s most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise.

Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years in discomfort before receiving treatment.

But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees.

It’s not just broken knees…people with diseases that are life threatening are forced to wait, sometimes more than a year, for an appointment to discuss options (nevermind the actual treatments required). Many have died waiting.
That’s progressive isn’t it?

The country’s publicly financed health insurance system — frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity — is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.

Dr. Day, for instance, is planning to open more private hospitals, first in Toronto and Ottawa, then in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. Ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines. Dr. Day says he is eager to see them in court.

“We’ve taken the position that the law is illegal,” Dr. Day, 59, says. “This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years.”

Animals have always taken precident over humans in countries where socialized medicine is the system of choice. Animals aren’t covered under the national programs, but by private enterprise. Go figure.

Dr. Day may be a rebel (he keeps a photograph of himself with Fidel Castro behind his desk), but he appears to be on top of a new wave in Canada’s health care future. He is poised to become the president of the Canadian Medical Association next year, and his profitable Vancouver hospital is serving as a model for medical entrepreneurs in several provinces.

Canada remains the only industrialized country that outlaws privately financed purchases of core medical services. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other politicians remain reluctant to openly propose sweeping changes even though costs for the national and provincial governments are exploding and some cancer patients are waiting months for diagnostic tests and treatment.

Dr. Day may be a rebel and he may love Fidel, but he’s not stupid. He knows there is a need and he is responding to it. More doctors up there should follow him. Medical care should never converge with government control. The two have different goals and when lives are stake, the LIFE should rule, not payment issues and the like.

But a Supreme Court ruling last June — it found that a Quebec provincial ban on private health insurance was unconstitutional when patients were suffering and even dying on waiting lists — appears to have become a turning point for the entire country.

“The prohibition on obtaining private health insurance is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services,” the court ruled.

Exactly. Maybe Canadians are waking up to see the sky not so sunny when it comes to their healthcare. The utopian world of EuropeOn style socialist healthcare doesn’t work; it may take decades to prove, but it will always collapse onto itself. It’s a matter of time really.