KURTENBACH: Public or private investments?

[Oscar]

Public or private investments?

March 14, 2016

To the Editor,

It seems that Premier Brad Wall believes that private resource investments will benefit some interests in Saskatchewan more than public investments, where benefits could become available to all provincial residents.

Examples are: private liquor stores, M.R.I.’s, the sale of blood plasma, etc. This appears to be an endeavour to diminish Canada's public single-payer Health Care program.

This poses the question: Will private health care programs deliver necessary health care to all Saskatchewan residents at a lower cost than a publicly-funded program?

In 2010, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] compared costs of public versus private electricity. The study involved 34 wealthy OECD countries. They found that the private costs for electricity was 23.1% greater than the costs for electricity being delivered by a publicly-funded program.

In France, the cost of water provided by the private sector was 16.6% higher than water supplied through municipal provision.

In 2011, voting in a referendum, 96% of the citizens of Italy indicated they would prefer to have their water supplied by a public service.

Since 1970, The US Institute of Medicine has been a non-profit component of US National Academy of Sciences. The following is the Institute's (2012) observation of private US health care costs: ". . . 30 cents of every medical dollar, goes to unnecessary health care, deceitful paperwork, and fraud. The $750 billion in annual waste is more than the Pentagon budget and more than enough to care for every American who lacks health insurance!”

Leo Kurtenbach,
Saskatoon, SK
Phone: 306 652 5129