There’s no rhyme or reason to the way we publicly fund health services in Canada: six per cent of dental care, 40 per cent of home care in long term care, 50 of drugs, nothing for hearing aids or glasses or contraception. Where’s the logic there? As a result, we have the least universal healthcare system in the world. Ponder that for a second. The least universal healthcare system in the world. Not something to be proud of. Medicare does cover everyone, but it covers everyone inadequately. Stated simply, what’s wrong with Canadian health care today is that we’re trying to deliver 21st-century care with a 1950s model of delivery and funding. We have an Edsel, but we need a Tesla. And my point here is that we need modernization.
We have an inefficient system, but the real reason is that we haven’t found a way to make dentistry/optometry/long term care public goods. They have lower barriers to entry than direct medical care in a hospital, so they’re easy to privatize.