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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (60356)	4/27/2005 1:34:09 PM
From: tonto	Respond to of 81568

AS, do you even have a clue about what you post? NATIONAL POST Latest News 52% back private care Quebec, B.C., Prairies favour a user-pay alternative: poll Joseph Brean National Post Tuesday, April 26, 2005 1 \| 2 \| NEXT >> CREDIT: Glenn Lowson/file Dr. Omar Hakim of the TLC Laser Eye Centre in the BCE place in Toronto performs laser eye surgery. More than half of Canadians believe they should be allowed to pay for private health care, as long as there is also free care available for all who need it, a new poll finds. In the new Leger Marketing poll, the national average was 52% in favour of allowing "those who wish to pay for health care in the private sector to have speedier access to this type of care while still maintaining the current free and universal health care system." Forty-two per cent were opposed, and 5% had no opinion. Quebecers were most likely to support a private system alongside the public one, with 65% saying yes, followed by British Columbia at 56%, and the Prairies at 51%, the poll found. Ontario and Alberta leaned slightly to the no side, with 46% and 45% in favour of private care. Only 37% of respondents in the Atlantic were in favour of private care. Health care is likely to be, alongside the sponsorship scandal, one of the most important issues should an election be called this spring. The Prime Minister recently accused Stephen Harper, the Conservative leader, of having a "hidden agenda" to scrap the Canada Health Act. The Liberals, meanwhile, have been accused of turning a blind eye to the proliferation of private health care in Quebec for fear of further antagonizing voters there, while being critical of Alberta for allowing some expansion of the private sphere. Among poll respondents with stated political affiliations, Liberal voters were 49% in favour, Conservatives 67% in favour, NDPers 35% in favour, and Bloquistes 64% in favour. To a separate question, 57% of Canadians said they believe "patients sometimes obtain health care faster than they should because of their contacts within the health care system." Regionally, this suspicion was highest in Quebec (70%), Alberta (67%) and the Atlantic provinces (61%), and lowest in British Columbia (45%). Michel Kelly-Gagnon, president of the Montreal Economic Institute, which commissioned the poll, said the results reveal a gap between Canadian laws and opinions. "Unless you're absolutely a communist, you have to agree that, with your disposable after-tax income, you should have the right to consume whatever it is that you want, including private health insurance," he said. He said the Quebec discrepancy -- the province tolerates more private providers than most others -- is largely the result of Quebecers not sharing the reverence of other Canadians for medicare as a defining national characteristic. Quebec francophones, for instance, will generally point to language and culture as their primary points of pride, Mr. Kelly-Gagnon said, whereas English Canadians will point to their social programs, especially medicare. He predicted the Liberals will cast private health care as a Conservative issue in the coming election, but even among their own constituency there is strong support for more privatization. "The only party that has a clear 'No' is the NDP," he said. The same poll was also conducted during the federal election campaign last year, and the results were nearly identical. More... Their economy and standard of living are much healthier than ours, mainly because they offer national health care