To the editor:
Re: "It's a Day at a time in private clinic battle," July 25.
Steeped in the political culture of the social welfare nanny state of everyone living at the expense of everyone else, most of us choose to cling to a governmentfunded health care monopoly that is about to implode.
Against a backdrop of dramatic demographic changes, with a generation of baby boomers about to retire, we keep exhausting ourselves in our never-ending public debate about the financial "band-aiding" of Canada's (f)ailing system of universal health care.
Our sacred principle of "equal access" has merely served to equalize all Canadians to the lowest common denominator of health care mediocrity at ever-increasing cost to the tax payer and smothering innovative health care investment in Canada.
While we don't seem to mind paying $400/month or more for car payments, we balk at having to pay something similar for health insurance... insisting that health care is, and should be, free.
Following Quebec's retreat from its proposed and publicly opposed $25 user fee, suggestions for such user fees and selective parallel privatization remain electoral "suicide" at the polls for both federal and provincial politicians.
Unless we, the people, somehow succeed in reforming our own mindset of bottomless entitlement and accept a measure of personal responsibility for our own "wellness," real reform in Canada for a better health care system and more effective control of healthcare spending will remain an elusive notion ... and we'll continue to get exactly what we deserve.
E.W. Bopp, Tsawwasssen
