Bryan Sant wrote: > 'The Canadian Supreme Court struck down a law forbidding private > insurance in a 2005 decision, ruling that "Access to a waiting list > is not access to health care" The decision resulted from a Canadian > case in which a man waited a year for hip-replacement surgery, and > Canada has started down the road of privatization.'
This is an interesting statement. Some parts of Canada have indeed started down the road to privatization. But privatization in general does not lead to cheaper health care. In Canada (not sure about the history of US utilities) that were formerly public services (power, gas, etc) have been privatized over the years, the idea being that the market would bring about cheaper services. This has proved to be complete and utter bu****ks. In Alberta, for example, where the electrical utility was privatized, prices have doubled since privatization. Gas prices (natural gas) have also almost doubled. This is not a supply and demand issue as there's enough gas to run the entire province *and* export 70% to the US. Coincidentally profits from said privatized services have skyrocketed. Our own health care system in the US is also proof that private companies *do not* lead to cheaper services, as proved by the fact that we spend almost double on health care as a percentage of GDP as many countries that have good (but struggling) health care systems. If our health care is twice as good as other companies, it's not reflected in any real statistics of well-being, mortality rates, etc. Turns out private companies are as ineffecient as governments, but maybe for different reasons. So saying that private companies and competition always brings about the lowest cost is just not always true. In many cases the intricacies of the technologies and markets, particularly in the broadband industry, merely lead to higher prices and greater profits for the telcos. And lower qualities of service. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
