Fraser Institute condemns Romanow report - Romanow Report

Community Action, Dec 9, 2002

VANCOUVER -- The Fraser Institute, a leading advocate of market solutions to health care problems, condemned the final Romanow report on health care in Canada, saying it "produces no new insights but rehashes the prejudices and preconceptions that have brought Canadian health care to its current difficulties." Stating that Romanow's final report "does not earn, nor deserve, the consideration of those seriously searching for solutions to current problems,"

According to executive director Michael Walker, Canadians need the freedom to spend their own money to buy access to accelerated treatments such as Workers' Compensation Boards, the military and the RCMP buy from private clinics.

He added that Romanow did nothing more than rehash "his preliminary musings as the Commission got underway", and noted that when Romanow was premier of Saskatchewan his province had the longest health care waiting lists.

"Canadians should place little confidence in a report which extends by compulsion to all of the provinces the failed attitudes and policies applied in Saskatchewan," he said.

Describing the Romanow Commission as an "ideological rush to judgement" Walker insists that the commission failed to consider key facts including the premise that Canada spends more, on an age adjusted basis, than any of the industrialized countries who provide government sponsored, universal access to health care systems. More money has not reduced health care waiting lists, and Romanow ignored policies in the top performing countries in health care outcomes by rejecting notions such as user fees or private delivery of public health services.

As well, Walker asserted that the $15 million spent on the Romanow Commission would have been better used to eliminate by-pass surgery lists in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan combined. 604-688-0221