Posted Sep. 1/05
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- The University of Regina’s Roy Romanow speaks to Kathryn O’Hara, CTV Chair in Science Broadcast Journalism.
A capacity crowd converged on the Chateau Laurier last winter to hear speakers from the 2005 Arthur Kroeger College Leadership Forum and Awards Dinner.
The fifth Leadership Forum focused on “The Private Role in the Public Interest,” posing such questions as: How big a role should business have in public sector programs and services?
Answering this question as it relates to healthcare was Roy Romanow, who chaired the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada and currently serves as senior policy fellow at the University of Regina’s Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy. Joining Romanow in a joint discussion entitled “Healthcare: How Much Public, How Much Private?” was Robert Evans, professor of economics at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Health Services and Policy Research.
“I found them to be entirely refreshing,” says Kathryn O’Hara, CTV Chair in Science Broadcast Journalism, who interviewed both Romanow and Evans during the panel discussion.
“Both of them worked around a lot of the myths that are out there about what healthcare is and how much it costs.”
During his “fascinating” presentation, Evans made the case for why economics won’t sink healthcare if our current system is employed properly, says O’Hara.
Similarly, Allan Maslove, a professor in Carleton’s School of Public Policy and Administration, has argued that publicly funded health care is cheaper than private alternatives. Canada’s administrative costs are a third of what they are in the U.S., he says. In 2004, an estimated 31 percent of America’s $1.79 trillion health care bill of was spent on administration. Canada’s provinces and territories — which govern 90 percent of all publicly funded health care — spend 1.9 percent on administration.
As discussed among panel members and onlookers, O’Hara notes there is much talk in Canada about the provision of different health services and not a lot of dialogue around preventative measures.
“I think people tend to forget that prevention is a really important component in making sure your system works,” she says.