Read the Story Since 2018, over 60,000 patients have died on a wait list for medical treatment in Ontario. In many of these cases, patients would have suffered with chronic pain while waiting for joint surgery, or cloudy vision while waiting for cataract surgery in their final years. However, some also died while waiting for lifesaving treatment. The government had no problem taking tax dollars from these patients throughout their life, but it struggled with keeping its end of the bargain: providing them the health services they paid for. Incredibly, at the same time, a number of Ontario government laws essentially outlaw non-government alternatives. This is not right. A new policy brief by SecondStreet.org includes a roadmap on how to remove the Ontario government’s legal barriers, bringing Ontario closer to better-performing European models where patients can choose: use the public system or pay for treatment at non-government clinics. These include changes that would allow for the establishment of new private hospitals, removing the prohibition on non-government insurance options for medically necessary services, and allowing physicians to accept payment from sources other than the public insurance plan. It’s important to understand that Ontario (and Canada) has chosen a unique, uncommon, and unnecessarily restrictive path towards universal health care. Canadian Medicare emphasizes universal government insurance coverage but does not ensure timely access to necessary care. In fact, it actively prevents it. This contrasts with other universal health care systems that put patients before ideology, regardless of whether care is provided by government or private institutions. Consider Ontario’s Private Hospital Act which explicitly prohibits issuing new licences for any private hospital (after 1973). Other countries understand that patients don’t care if they receive treatment in a public or private hospital, so long as it is available and accessible when they need it. In fact, data from eight countries with better-performing universal systems shows non-government hospitals can represent anywhere from 7% to 100% of the total stock. Removing provincial restrictions would allow private capital to fund and build hospitals that could become an essential partner for publicly funded care. The Ford government has already…​Read More