No two tier health care in Ontario (en francais)

Liberals will call it anything other than two tier. Legal hair splitting is all that it is.

We live in a world of rationed health care. Who you know does mean something when it comes to receiving your ration. You can get an MRI for your dog faster than you can get one for your mother. Quebec and British Columbia have thriving private sector initiatives underway, yet if any other Province contemplates moving in this direction, out comes the velvet hammer.

We must continue to demand more, and when the government can't or won't produce, we should be allowed to legally purchase the required service anywhere in Canada.

Hospitals willing to deliver drugs paid for by patients
May 6, 2006. 01:00 AM
ELAINE CAREY AND TANYA TALAGA
HEALTH REPORTERS

Under a proposed agreement with Ontario's 14 cancer treatment hospitals, the patients would buy the drugs and the hospital would administer them without charge.

"If you're wealthy enough to buy it, or have it covered by third-party insurance, is it a reasonable thing that you should have no access to this agent?" he asked. "I'd like you to speak to the cancer patients who are presenting this case."

Women with breast cancer who are prescribed expensive aromatase inhibitors already have to pay for the pills because Ontario pays only for cancer drugs that are intravenously administered, Sullivan said.

"This is the way we pay for pharmaceuticals in this country — it's all over the map," he said.

Sullivan is adamant that the new proposal is not two-tier health care because the drugs are not covered by the provincial insurance plan. The Canada Health Act only prohibits paying for drugs or services that are insured, he argues.

"The feds have nothing to do with this," he said. "It's about whether or not hospitals are comfortable with this. How can it be a violation of the Canada Health Act to say you're allowing patients to pay for a service that's uninsured?"