At a series of events held across the country, the CMA and the Globe & Mail have been giving a platform to spokespeople from private, for-profit health care companies while marginalizing voices calling for the expansion of our public health care system. A spokesperson for Maple, the Loblaws-backed virtual tele-health corporation, will be on the panel on Thursday.
Only 75 percent of our health care dollars go to Canada’s public health system, one of the lowest ratios in the OECD. Rather than elevating the perspective of corporations like Maple that are siphoning away public funds and personnel, we need to urgently focus on policies that will strengthen and expand our reeling public health care system.
A public, single-payer pharmacare system, for instance, would allow us to use bulk buying to bring down our out-of-control drug prices, saving billions for our hospitals and resulting in far fewer Canadians going to the ER because they can’t afford their medications. (The Globe editors, however, are opposed to public, single-payer pharmacare.)
The profit-driven remedies on offer have been tried – and failed – for decades. Expanding private, for-profit health care through so-called “public-private partnership” schemes, as the CMA/Globe & Mail forums have been calling for, will not solve the health care crisis; it will only move us further along the path to U.S.-style, two-tier health care.
Join us to learn more about this issue, have conversations with people attending the event, and connect with other local people who care about keeping our health care public and achieving universal, public pharmacare.
If you can’t come out on Thursday, register to attend the CMA/Globe & Mail event virtually here https://www.globeandmailevents.com/pphealthcarehalifax
