Recently, some premiers and folks with letters after their names met to discuss the issue at hand – healthcare. Their resolution? The federal Government isn’t spending enough money on Healthcare, and thus, they should spend more.
Now there’s a couple of issues I have with that. Number one, a couple of days before this announcement was made, I just so happened to get paid. While looking at my pay stub, I realized something that many of you have come to know long before now. I pay a lot of taxes.
So if the government decides to spend more on healthcare, one of two things has to happen. Since we haven’t run a surplus in years, either something has to not get as much money thrown at it, or they have to take more money out of me, and in turn, you. To be honest, I’m not really in favor of either of those options, so I’ve decided that alternate arrangements have to be made.
Let me give it to you straight. I don’t really want to pay for healthcare unless I want to. Let me go a step farther – I don’t think I should even HAVE to pay for it unless I wanted to. Although, I also think that the completely privatized system is broken as well. Thus, here’s my solution:
All major operations and diagnostics should be taken care of by the public purse through taxpayer dollars. I don’t think people should be forced to pay for a heart transplant, and in turn not receive it if they can’t afford it.
Outside of that, I want the option of paying for things like a doctor’s visit or a prescription refill, or whatever to be voluntary, and if I opt to go that route, my taxes should thus reflect it.
Now, obviously, if you’re the type of person who has to visit the hospital regularly or whatever because you have legitimate medical conditions, then your visits would also be free – but that all comes after an evaluation, and exam, which qualifies you for thus.
It’s not a foolproof plan, and there no doubt needs to be more explaining, but I can’t write a new health act in this editorial – I just don’t have the space. But let me highlight really quickly how I feel this will help us.
First, with people having to pay for doctor’s visits, say goodbye to the wait times of people with the sniffles who can’t go to the drug store to get some Tylenol, while someone else is doubled over in pain from Kidney Stones waits their turn.
Second, the market for privatized health clinics would shoot up in no time – giving people a choice, who want it, and possibly even better care, since a doctor working by the hour has no problem listening to ALL of your symptoms before making a diagnosis.
And third, it gives people a break on the taxes, because lets face it – we could all use it. Right?
I don’t know – maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’ll have people coming out of the woodwork to take me out. But I bring back to the first line of this editorial. If you or someone you know has a better solution, then let’s here it – because goodness knows no one else is coming up with anything better. Especially not the Government.
