If history is any guide, Ontario voters should not expect meaningful discussion of health policy during the upcoming provincial election campaign. Indeed, none of the party leaders have so far offered any feasible solutions to one of the provinces most pressing challenges - the unsustainable growth of government health care spending.
health care
Economic theory and common sense tell us that financial incentives influence peoples behavior. This is as true for the local barber as it is for doctors. Although some may believe in the romantic fallacy that doctors are altruistic actors, or bound to act in favor of their patients by the Hippocratic Oath, empirical evidence shows us that they too, are influenced by money.
Government health spending is growing at unsustainable rates, while patients are facing shortages of medical resources and declining access to necessary medical care. The president of the Canadian Medical Association recently called on the federal government to become more involved in the management of provincial health systems in order to solve the serious problems plaguing Medicare. Unfortunately, the CMA president seriously misdiagnosed the cause of the health system's ills.