Long health care wait times against "right to life"?

[Moonlight Graham]

Supreme Court says no.  We are prisoners to crappy provincial health funding.

[Quote]The doctor who led a legal challenge over a patient’s right to pay for private medical care says a decision by Canada’s top court not to hear an appeal means long wait times have been “forcibly embedded” into the medicare system.

Dr. Brian Day is CEO of the Cambie Surgery Centre, which, along with a handful of patients, has spent more than a decade in court challenging the British Columbia Medicare Protection Act, which bans extra-billing and private insurance for medically necessary procedures.

 

They argued long wait times in B.C.’s publicly funded system amounted to a breach of the patients’ rights to life, liberty and security of the person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

 

The Supreme Court of B.C. dismissed the constitutional challenge three years ago and the provincial Court of Appeal upheld the ruling last year. On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada said it would not hear an appeal.[/quote]

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/scoc-wont-hear-appeal-involving-private-health-care

[herbie]

You're a doctor who was looking forward to extra billing?
Or a patient with a brain injury?

[Moonlight Graham]

1 hour ago, herbie said:

You're a doctor who was looking forward to extra billing?
Or a patient with a brain injury?

Yeah I question the motives. But it's an interesting constitutional question in right to life, liberty, security of the person.

The courts seem to have upheld the government universal health system monopoly and ban on private insurance care.

[Aristides]

33 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Yeah I question the motives. But it's an interesting constitutional question in right to life, liberty, security of the person.

The courts seem to have upheld the government universal health system monopoly and ban on private insurance care.

Yes, the court has said people have no right to healthcare other than what the state will give them. 

[TreeBeard]

I see the claim as akin to saying “car accidents are a violation of Canadians’ right to life”.  

What happens when there are waits in a parallel private system?  Do clinics get shut down for violating the right to life?   It seems unworkable.  
 

However, the court’s ruling, at least in part, is that there is no right to healthcare.  
 

It’s an interesting read.  I prefer to go past the media headlines, which often say nothing about the court’s reasons but are either simply giving a very superficial overview, or worse, a biased misrepresentation of what the court said.  
 

https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/ca/22/02/2022BCCA0245.htm#SCJTITLEBookMark787

Edited April 7, 2023 by TreeBeard

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, Aristides said:

Yes, the court has said people have no right to healthcare other than what the state will give them. 

No, not quite. They did say healthcare is not a right, but the second part of your statement is a misrepresentation. 

[Aristides]

10 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

No, not quite. They did say healthcare is not a right, but the second part of your statement is a misrepresentation. 

Not only is it not a right, the state can prevent you from getting it. Unless you go outside the country.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Aristides

[Moonlight Graham]

5 hours ago, Aristides said:

Yes, the court has said people have no right to healthcare other than what the state will give them. 

That's an insane legal decision Under what law are they basing this on?  The courts just decide what they want and make up legal justification for it later.  The Charter has no teeth.  And what happens when the state doesn't provide adequate health care? 

It's odd to ban health practitioners from making people healthier, while doctors have a right to kill fetuses and people who want to commit suicide.

[TreeBeard]

34 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

That's an insane legal decision Under what law are they basing this on?  The courts just decide what they want and make up legal justification for it later.  The Charter has no teeth.  And what happens when the state doesn't provide adequate health care? 

It's odd to ban health practitioners from making people healthier, while doctors have a right to kill fetuses and people who want to commit suicide.

Read the actual judgement.  I linked it above. 

[ExFlyer]

13 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Supreme Court says no.  We are prisoners to crappy provincial health funding.

[Quote]The doctor who led a legal challenge over a patient’s right to pay for private medical care says a decision by Canada’s top court not to hear an appeal means long wait times have been “forcibly embedded” into the medicare system.

Dr. Brian Day is CEO of the Cambie Surgery Centre, which, along with a handful of patients, has spent more than a decade in court challenging the British Columbia Medicare Protection Act, which bans extra-billing and private insurance for medically necessary procedures.

 

They argued long wait times in B.C.’s publicly funded system amounted to a breach of the patients’ rights to life, liberty and security of the person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

 

The Supreme Court of B.C. dismissed the constitutional challenge three years ago and the provincial Court of Appeal upheld the ruling last year. On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada said it would not hear an appeal.[/quote]

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/scoc-wont-hear-appeal-involving-private-health-care

Sounds like a B C issue.

[blackbird]

This seems like a denial of universal human rights and the right to life.  What kind of a state would allow tens of thousands of people to die on waiting lists and say they have no right to purchase private care if they have the money?  This is all part of the growing authoritarianism and reduction in individual rights in Canada.  It is lowering the value of human life and lessening respect for individual rights.

How can anyone trust the leaders of the government who run the health care system if that is their attitude?

Edited April 7, 2023 by blackbird

[ExFlyer]

1 minute ago, blackbird said:

This seems like a denial of universal human rights and the right to life.  What kind of a state would allow tens of thousands of people to die on waiting lists and say they have no right to purchase private care if they have the money?  This is all part of the growing authoritarianism and reduction in individual rights in Canada.  It is lowering the value of human life and lessening respect for individual rights.

Where in the world is health care a "universal right to life"?

[herbie]

3 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

Where in the world is health care a "universal right to life"?

Here.

[ExFlyer]

15 hours ago, herbie said:

Here.

Really? Universal right to life??? Universal health care (with limitations, exclusions and restrictions) but no right to life.

We even have assisted suicide so, universal right to death??

[blackbird]

God created us in his image.  He said "thou shalt not kill".  Therefore allowing people to die by willful neglect is wrong.  A health care system that allows thousands of people to die simply because of mismanagement is wrong or puts ideology ahead of care by not allowing people who have the money to pay for care to get care.  When the government blocks people from paying or having a private insurer pay for them and sets up a universal system that only allows people to be on a long public system waiting list, something is wrong with the system.  The former Soviet union suffered huge shortages of things because it was run by bureaucrats and was extremely inefficient.

The government also sometimes makes claims that the waiting lists are getting shorter, but since we don't have all the facts, how do we know?  We are just supposed to believe everything they say.

The Socialist system never was an equal system for all.  There is no one single waiting list for all.  There are actually countless waiting lists, depending on the location one is in, the type of treatment or diagnosis, and depending on which doctor.  Each specialist has his own list in some places.  Also the lists are not available to the public so nobody knows how they are used.  So there is no one list for everyone which means the public system is not an equal system at all. 

Public systems seem to only work well when they are operating at top efficiency and enough money is put into them.  There are many reasons why it is not an equal system now.  Public systems are also hamstrung by bureaucracy, red tape, mismanagement, union contracts, and so on. 

So the argument that allowing some people to pay for care themselves or through a private insurance plan would be bad sounds kind of bogus.  The system is full of inequalities already.  Allowing some people to pay at least part themselves, might actually shorten the waiting lists in the public system and benefit everyone.

Edited April 8, 2023 by blackbird

[ExFlyer]

32 minutes ago, blackbird said:

God ......

So the argument that allowing some people to pay for care themselves or through a private insurance plan sounds kind of bogus.  ....

Gawd...it is what it is. Those that can will, and always have, even way back in jesus times.

This is not a communist or country and not everyone is equal. (even in communist countries not everyone is the same)