THE odometer hit 160
km-h as we careened
down the Cape Town
highway towards the
clinic.

The Toronto ambalance
conveying Joshua Feuching
mighe have done the sane.
Propped in the back seat of
imy car was my daughter, her
every breath shallow and
raspy, ber face the arey- blue
pallor of an oxygen-deprived
asthmatic.

Joshua had probably lost
consciousness.

“Never take asthma in
your stride,” cang the words
of our excellent pediatrician in
my cars

“Asthmatic youngsters are
heroically deceptive,” he had
said. “They learn to compen-
sate tor de lack of air, which
is why you can lose them just
like chat,” and he had
snapped his fingers emphati-
cally.

The ER that turned away
Joshua, the 18-year-old
Canadian asthmatic, was of a
different mind.

f had called our pediatri-
cian at 2 a.m. He sprang to
when [ related my daughter's
dangerously low peak-tlow
measuces: “CH meet you at
the clinic. They will have
instructions,” he had said.

Outside the clinic in the
clear African night staff wait-
ed with a wheelchair and oxy-
gen. Moments later Dr.
Land was bounding down the
corridor taking change. My
daughter, the recipient of pri-
vate care ina Third World

fair
comment

country, recovered fully from
status asthma and a collapsed
lung and wus released a week
later

Joshua Feuclling, the
recipient of the Sovict-style
universal indifference of
Canadian health care, died of
cardiac arrest following respi-
ratory failure

ftso happened that we pot
to experience the majesty of
the Canadian system.

My child’s metile was tes
ed when, on arnval in
Canada, and having severed
her arm in half, she too
became the repository for the
cruelty of this system. There
was the abusive treagment in
the ER: the staff, unwiiling to
discern a real emergency from
a hypochondriac’s weekly
visit, There was the Code
Blue on the operating table,
the giceful absence of pain
management when all that
held the bones together were
two larg: pins, and there was
the instruction to vacate the
bed less than a day after
surgery, absent any pain med-
ication. To their creait, the
staff was especially vigilant
about going through a bat-
tery of questions to gauge

Sick hea

schether this was a case of
child abuse.

It is no coincidence that
the care my cluld recetved in
South Airica cvempliticad tree
enterprise, pustas the treat
meant she, but not Joshua
Fouclling, outlived in Canada,
exemplifies the state-run
monopoly,

“Eis practically ami axiom
of economics,” write
Johnson, Block, Statie and
Privette ina paper on Free
Eaterprise Health Care, “that
monopoly creates a worse
product, ata higher price,
than competition.”

Equally important is the
problem of “moral hazard”:
the greater vou protect the
patient trom the financial
implication of using the sys-
tem, the greater the over use

Write these scholars:
“Unless consumers are
required to share costs, no
program, government or oth:
erwise, will be able to mect
the demand.”

In Canada and in Britai
there are los waiting lists
because the demand for ser-
vices skyrockets when it is
perceived in error as free.
ladeed, a centralized swstem
like Medicare subverts the
market's ability to bring sup-
ply and demand in tine
through price fluctuations.
Therefore demand for med-
ical services is destined io
grow, while supply decreases
steadily,

Practle about restoring
some imaginary, pre-catastro-
phe funding to the system will
not obviate this reality, not

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one whit.

One of the eructal ditter
ehiees bemween a ue wernnient
Monopaly and a pnvate enter
prise, avcording to folinsean,
Block and Ovner, is that the
governments able to disre-
gard the bankruptey of che
svstean indehnitely by increas
ing (an reventies.

Not so the private insurer
who can ignore things like
over consumption, Lick of
supply and a huge demand
fur service “only as long as

ruptey can be staved
of

The state alone, say these
schoiars, “can maintain artifi-
cially low prices for medical
goods and services over the
long haul.”

Ever stop to wonder why
physicians command wages in
excess of the earnings of
lawyers, college professors or
engineers? Right off the bat,
the higher wages doctors
conmmand signal that there

ion |

in the February 13 issue of
the North Shore News the
North Shore Crisis Services
Society ad should also have
ihanked the Corporation of
the District of West
Vancouver.

The North Shore News
would like to apologize for
eny inconvenience.

err PPP rErerr rey er

re are

Friday, February 18, 2000 - North Shore News - 7

are not enough of them
around.

This, according to
Jahnsea, Block and Oxner, 1s
because medical asoctations
with the imprimatur of gov
ernment act hke unions,
unposing cartel like re
tons on the entry of qu
people into the protess

They do this bv decreeiny,
which schools shonld be
approved, as well as “estab-
lishing standards for admis
ston that are so difficult as te
discourage young people
trom ever trying to gain
admission.”

The authors of Notes on
Ficalth Care Financing and
Free Markets argue convine-
ingly that by acting like a
medievai guikd system, med-
ical associations freeze would:
be practitioners out of the
system in order to increase

ith Care system

ceonogue returns for those
fortuna enough to be
admitted.

The argument that the
standards set by the medical
associations ensure high qual:
ry health care mast be que
thoned, stace licensing, vehict
is limited to vovernment,
constitutes a monopoly and a
monopoly by definition linuts
competition and quality.

No prosperity has ever
come through “goveramental
central planning”; on the con
wary.

Therefore the resuscitation
of the Canadian heaith care
behemoth must be sought in
a deregulation which will at
once tackle the shortage of
doctors (supply end) and
decrease demand by requizing
consumers to share in the
costs.

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