Viewpoints from Craig Hasday
No doubt delayed care will impact anyone with chronic conditions throughout the world – but in an environment with a scarcity of resources, rationing and lack of availability will compound the impact.
A recent article in the Canadian HR Reporter indicates that wait periods for elective but medically necessary care across Canada increased from 20.9 weeks to 22.6 weeks in 2019 and far longer in Prince Edward Island (46.5 weeks), Nova Scotia (43.5 weeks) and New Brunswick (41.3 weeks). And the Canadian economy lost productivity and wages of almost $2.1 billion in 2019 according to a Fraser Institute study. An estimated 30,000 Canadians had treatment delayed for conditions such as diabetes and cancer from the end of March to December 2020. And employer-sponsored benefits costs in Canada are expected to increase by 7% this year.
I suspect the U.S. will not fare as badly, since because of higher capacity, our country will catch up much more quickly. And certainly, before the pandemic, we didn’t show the same backlogs as our neighbor to the north.
Our government has done an amazing job with vaccines and testing – but even for this, the private sector has played an essential role.
A government-provided, single-payer system might seem like an attractive alternative, but it is full of landmines for the unwary.
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