Klein's Health Bill Under Fire
Rather than privatizing health care, if Canada wants a sustainable health-care system there needs to be an open public debate on health reform combined with proper levels of federal funding to support the system. By ANNE KYLE of The Leader-Post (21/03/00)
"Alberta
*s private health bill threatens the integrity of Canada*s public health-care system in a manner that has far-reaching and adverse implications under international trade agreements," says Stephen Lewis.To protect the integrity of Canada
*s public health-care system, federal Health Minister Allan Rock must tell Alberta Premier Ralph Klein his bill is in violation of international trading agreements and the Canada Health Act and must be withdrawn, Lewis told delegates at the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO) annual convention in Regina."He should explicitly say to Ralph Klein,You cannot do this. The federal government disallows it, we declare your legislation ultra virus, and if you proclaim it, we will extinguish it
*," the former assistant secretary general of UNICEF and past leader of the Ontario NDP said Monday.Klein
*s Bill 11 would expand the work done by for-profit clinics to allow for overnight stays and more complex procedures. All work would be paid for by the province if it*s covered under medicare."Alberta Premier Ralph Klein is treading on very dangerous ground by pushing his model of private health care," Lewis said, explaining the private-health bill has more to do with the Alberta government
*s ideology than waiting lists or pain and suffering.A legal opinion of Klein
*s proposed bill clearly shows it would be in violation of international trade provisions under the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization, subjecting Canada to a ruling by an international tribunal over which the federal government would have very little control, Lewis said, pointing out the independent tribunal meets in secret and its decisions are binding."The tribunal might find Bill 11 in violation of NAFTA and therefore what Premier Klein is doing will be opening the door to the private-sector generally, because his bill is changing what is already in place, and the tribunal could apply that finding right across Canada," Lewis said.
"What Klein is doing is opening the door to private-sector, largely American, involvement in the Canadian health system in a way which will be irreversible," Lewis said, noting Bill 11 exposes Alberta to being challenged in a test case by the United States in which the province would have to open its doors to American investors and service providers because the bill appears to be in violation of international trade agreements.
"If Alberta doesn
*t open its doors more widely to American service providers and investors, the chink in the armour could become a hole in the dike," Lewis said, warning an international tribunal could say Alberta*s private health legislation applies across the country."Alberta is pulling Canada into the debate that pits international corporate rights against national public interest," he said.
"To complicate matters, if private, for-profit hospitals are allowed, and three years from now it is determined to be a monumental failure, the decision can
*t be reversed without governments having to pay prohibitive amounts of compensation to private interests who have claims on the health sector," he said."It is hard to swallow the argument that money is at the heart of it (Bill 11) when perhaps the wealthiest province in Canada, for a variety of ideological reasons, has actually dismembered much of the health-care environment by virtue of the erosion of funding," Lewis said.
Rather than privatizing health care, Lewis said, if Canada wants a sustainable health-care system there needs to be an open public debate on health reform combined with proper levels of federal funding to support the system.