The Wait Is the Price: Quiet Rationing Plagues Canadian Health Care
Commentary
Last month,
On X, formerly known as Twitter, community notes popped up to say that the video was misleading. 'Priority is decided by physicians, not the province,' wrote one commenter. Another noted that wait times did vary by province.
None of this, however, detracts from the core truths: Canadian health care is not free and it has two prices: the taxes Canadians pay for it and the wait times that make Canadians pay in the form of service rationing.
Canada's publicly provided health care system actually
requires
rationing in order to contain costs. Because services are offered at no monetary price,
The rationing keeps many patients away from care facilities or encourages them to
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All this may sound like an economist forcing everything into the 'econ box,' but the point has also been acknowledged by key architects of public health care systems themselves. Claude Castonguay, who served as Quebec's Minister of Health during the expansion of publicly provided care, conceded as much in his
To illustrate the magnitude of rationing (and the trend), one can examine the evolution of the median number of weeks between referral
Estimating the full cost of health care rationing is far from straightforward. The central challenge lies in balancing data reliability with the breadth of conditions considered. While some procedures and ailments are well documented, they represent only a subset of those subject to rationing. For many other conditions, data quality is limited or inconsistent, making comprehensive analysis difficult. As a result, most empirical studies focus narrowly on areas where measurement is more robust, leaving much of the total cost unaccounted for.
These procedures do not capture the full scope of delays in the system and only a few procedures—and the analysis focused only on an arbitrary definition of 'excessive' wait times. In 2013, the Conference Board of Canada found that adding an extra two additional ailments boosted the cost from
Another study used a similar method, but considered the cost in terms of lost wages and leisure. It arrived at a figure, for 2023, of
And all of this for what? One could argue that these wait times come with good care once obtained. That is not true either.
Adjusting for the age of population,
#28 in doctors
#24 in care beds
#25 in MRI units
#26 in CT scanners
In one comparative study examining care outcomes—such as cancer treatment, patient safety, and procedural success—'
Canadian health care works well for those who can afford to wait.
To which I might add:
wait very long.
From the
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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