Don't Know Much Geography...

For all of Richard Mellon Scaife's money, you'd think his editorial board would have a map or two lying around the office.

From today's "Thursday Wrap":

Confessions of an architect: You probably never heard of Claude Castonguay. He's the fella who designed Canada's government-run health care program. And it's a monumental failure. So much so that Mr. Castonguay now is advocating contracting out services to the private sector and returning to private health insurance. Reminds Manhattan Institute scholar David Gratzer, "The problem is that government bureaucrats simply can't centrally plan their way to better health care." It's something bureaucrats never learn.

Castonguay released a report last February advocating changes in Quebec's health care program - not Canada's. Here's a description of Monsieur Castonguay from Canada's National Review of Medicine:

The report's author, Claude Castonguay, is the former Liberal health minister who helped bring universal healthcare to Quebec in the 70s. Known as "the father of Quebec medicare," he went on to work as an insurance executive and serve as a Tory Senator. He's famous in Quebec for his change of heart about the viability of universal healthcare. He now feels that Quebecers expect too much from the system and that current demands have made it unsustainable. [emphasis added.]

Doesn't the Trib Editorial Board know the difference between Canada and Quebec? That mistake alone should invalidate everything that comes after it but , let's look at Castonguay's report (which can be found here, in the event you wanted to read it) anyway. Here's how the NRM sees it:

[The] commission's report, officially titled Getting Our Money's Worth, proposes to control costs by tying healthcare spending grown to GDP growth, about 3.8% per year (last year health spending went up 5.8%). The government has embraced that idea, even though Quebec spent less on healthcare than any other province last year, according to a 2007 report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Other cost-saving measures include reviewing the scope of public insurance coverage, expanding the role of the private sector in the delivery of care and permitting people to buy private insurance for publicly insured procedures (beyond the currently allowed hip, knee and cataract surgeries). The government has refused to support that last suggestion.

The recommendation to allow physicians to run "mixed" public-private practices, which are currently prohibited, was initially panned by Dr Couillard but he has since changed his mind, saying the idea is possible — but only after the current physician shortage is alleviated.

The recommendation that's been getting the most attention is the modified user fee. The report suggests a $25 to $65 fee per visit to be charged at year's end, with low-income families exempt. The report also suggested the government raise the provincial sales tax 0.5% or 1%. Both these report recommendations were quickly dismissed by the government.

That's just a little different from how the Trib characterized the report, non? Here's a recommendation from the summary of the report that I am sure the Trib's readers will find surprising:

The Task Force recommends that the government accelerate deployment of health clinics to ensure that each Quebecer has access to a family doctor.

Hmm. A health care system where every family has access to a family doctor, a system where private and public insurance can be used to insure universal coverage, and a co-pay system where low income families are exempt.

What's not to like about that? Can we get some of that here? Please?