Owen Lippert Fraser Institute Columnist CANADA ought to have a Royal Commission on the legal system — headed up by doctors. Sound odd? Perhaps, but no odder than the current practice of federal and provincial governments appointing judges to make health care policy: Justice Emmett Hall headed the 1966 Royal Commission, Justice Seaton conducted the 1991 commission in British Columbia and, most-recently, Justice Horace Krever deliv- ered the report on the blood systein. My theory is that gov- ‘Sale Price "999"! § ernments know judges will deliver what they want — political control over doctors, patients and hospitals. Judges will do so not because they're in cahoots with the politicians but because they are condi- tioned to suspect market behavior. Let's take as an ample Justice Krever. He insists that, as the first princi- ple, blood be a “public resource.” That 1s, the govern- ment -— not you ~- owns vour blood as soon as it’s left your body. He does nor even dis- cuss alternatives to state con- trol of the supply and use of blood products. To even tur- ther insulate the blood system from the discipline of the mar- ket and direct accountability to individuals, he suggests a limit- ed-compensation no-fault insurance scheme that would protect negligent government officials. The mantra is simple. Health care is “too imy to be lett to the market of doctors, patients and hospital providers. Doctors will charge too much. Poor patients can’t afford them. Public hospitals will be under-finded unless the government can deny the middle class access to private care, tnd force them to pay the high taxes necessary to sustain a public system. In short, Canada’ s current health care system reflects a no- exceptions, no-compromise suspicion of market behavior. How do otherwise intelli- gent people develop such a pessimistic and narrow view of one of mankind's most basic activities: exchanging one good or service for another? Judges spend year after year ring out new disputes according to rules derived from oid disputes. Now if all Wednesday, May 6, 1998 — North Shore News — 7 B Judging Canada’s health care system — vou do all day is see how nwo parties have failed to make the market work, you might be to think it’s not the but rather the market itself. What happens when you combine judges conditioned to see the market as a source of failure and a political class anxious (o prove they ¢: than the mark monopoly medicine delivered with all the gravitas of our judiciary. Public monopoly health care, of course, has its defend- ers who thank the heavens for the medical moonlighting of da’s judges. The public, faced with lengthening waiting lists, restricted access to new Look For These And Other Specials In Our Flyer. On Doorsteps, May 9th. Pe 0 months eS natural gas upphances. And Our new flyer, filled with specials like these, will he on your dh ep this Sale Price 100 monthe | $1792” | weekend. 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