: British Columbia spent millions of taxpayer dollars fending off a challenge to the Medicare Protection Act. Throughout the years-long legal battle, the government’s position was that even a modicum of private health care would be the first step down the “slippery slope” to the dreaded U.S. system.
But why? The government created barriers that effectively prevented building the very facilities now being used in Bellingham, Wash. Had that not been the case, treatments could have been provided by the private sector in B.C., keeping health care dollars in the province and providing care closer to home.British Columbia, like most provinces, is facing increasing demand for health care, made worse by an aging population.
This same government was so critical of the Cambie Surgery Centre, all because doctor Brian Day had the audacity to suggest there might be a place for private health care when governments could not deal with long waitlists. Now it is embracing private health care for cancer patients – and so they should.