SUBMISSION TO THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
To offer comment on Heath System reconfiguration.
You've
made a request to the public for suggestions on ensuring the quality and
sustainability of the BC health care system. The bullet points in your bulletin
or the points offered in your “letter” as points of contemplation tend to
direct response to the tactical level, to solicit, to some degree, suggestions
for operational improvement. While for people in the system seeking operational
improvement is important, in governance, and for the system as it now is, the
challenges are really strategic in nature.
The
system requires restructuring, we need to, with an open mind, take the knowledge
we’ve gained through the development of this iteration of health care delivery
and apply it to the design of a new system. The design perspective and the
design process will take us to many of the same places we are now and find us
new solution; design process achieves this by liberating us from present modalities
of action that limit solution. People seeking solution in the health care space
have their heads in a box, the costs of thinking outside that box are dear due
to the virulence of the interests that have built it. The people protecting
interests are good people, good people in a bad environment, the environment we
made for them.
People prefer health over illness and when illness comes it is
rarely by choice. Fulsome healthcare is a responsibility for people to garner
of their own accord and by their own capacities and in the absence of capacity,
the state has a role. The quality of healthcare should be of symmetric in
provisioning, regardless of socioeconomic circumstance; quality as per health
outcome, as opposed, to the nature of the provision of service. Universally
accessible healthcare is a moral obligation of society and any chosen action
that impairs the delivery of universal healthcare is an immoral act.
With an overriding commitment to universal access to healthcare as
the premise for discourse, perhaps people can begin to broach the subject
absent the political polarisation that has plagued the debate to date. As
resources for the provision healthcare garner greater and greater portions of
the public purse, as dictated by ever expanding health technologies, demographic
realities and the expanding definition of illness, we are going to require
enthusiasm AND open minds to meet the challenge. Thus far the debate around
healthcare has been hijacked by ideologues touting one political philosophy or
another.
The Canadian public wants healthcare that responds to the needs of
all people, delivered on a timely basis. Tommy Douglas never wanted and nor would any
other reasonable person want, people in waiting lines because of some manufactured
cultural imperative. The question should be - how do we ensure that Canadians
have universal access to excellent and timely healthcare?
The challenge is that Canadians have, at the hands of leadership,
chosen to make the present health system a key component to our national
identity. The present health system is unsustainable; the reality of the health
system being a key component of our national identity and the system’s inability
to exist as it does has created a pernicious polarised circumstance where a
near religiosity is driving the discourse around the issue.
The monolithic nature of the system has massed operational
interests to a point of influence that rational operational modalities are
impossible to introduce. The collective influence of all the service providers
intimidates government and hence confounds restructuring. This reality has the
tacticians holding nearly complete sway over system design and functionality. The
institutional inertia that has emerged from this circumstance is precluding the
government from managing the system, the system is managing itself and, in an
increasing measure, the government.
Discourse from government has to be directed at the larger body politic;
the message must be made clear, concise and delivered at sufficient volume to
cut through the constant din that arises at the mere prospect of change.
State action is only progressive when it is responding to people’s
needs and state action is regressive when it is precluding access to
healthcare. It is the case with many people holding rigidly to the status quo,
that they are failing to trust the good human intent they so ardently seeking
to enforce. There needs to be a much larger effort on behalf of government to
accurately inform the discourse around this issue so as to facilitate rational
debate.
The reality in Canada however is, there is an almost irrational
adherence to centrally controlled healthcare, even when it is to the public’s
detriment; so the solution posited to the public must see to this concern, that
is to say, the public demands attention to single payer and universal health
care.
The Case for Private Involvement
Most leadership presently exercised in the Canadian health system
is reacting to a system that has failed to adopt appropriate strategies. When
one observes the delivery of any other service provided in the context of
market forces, from food to houses, one witnesses a larger gradation of service
providers, heightened absorptive capacity and service provision that responds
to demand. We need to liberate ourselves from an irrational perspective that
places us in an ideological straightjacket; the overarching goal is the
universal provision of health care to Canadians. Our present system, in some
cases, is creating a circumstance of universally inaccessible healthcare. We
can do better. As Canadians we need to challenge ourselves to give
contemplation to the benefits that a market environment provides. We owe so
much abundance to what the market system provides in all other aspects of life,
it is truly shameful to obstruct access to that same abundance in the case of
healthcare
To suggest private enterprise is absent a role in the delivery of
healthcare, in the context of the Canada health act, is limiting as a
perspective and inaccurate as a reflection of the present health system. Presently,
some 30 – 40% of healthcare in British Columbia is privately delivered. There
are many compelling reasons to accept the utilization of markets in the
delivery of health services, we need only look to other countries successes to
guide us; France, Sweden, Japan, to name a few, have benefited from private
delivery of service. There is an irrational adherence to “government only”
health services in Canada that stifles the debate around our best way forward
and confines the breath of solution applied to the healthcare challenge.
Critical, is the realisation that universal access to quality
healthcare can occur society wide absent the government delivering the
services. We have a commitment in society for universal access to food, this
hardly compels the government to start farming – it only compels government to
support the underprivileged to purchase food. Enthusiasm for universal access
to healthcare must be actuated under the appropriate selection of the modality
for universality, in the case of other essentials, such as food, the poor are
provided the resources to purchase what they require in the market place -
allowing the market to discipline production under the rigors of supply and
demand. Presently we control the whole medical system to ensure the same services
for all, and end up with many having none. I am certain, absent distortions caused by
regulatory constrains such as in the United States where the medical insurance
lobby has far too much influence, that the open provision of medical services
would ultimately provide the best outcome.
As a rule of thumb, large centrally planned organizations, such as
England’s National Health Service become too bulky to manage. As time
progresses, the nature of organization has these entities become more
administratively intensive, the professionals’ and or service provider interests
over take user interests and there is an inherent inclination of all providers
to isolate themselves from accountability. In the absence of market discipline
these forces continue to attack both the quality and quantity of care and
overall productivity falls. England’s National Health Service experienced this
very reality and in response they privatised their hospitals by converting each
hospital to a society and adopting a fee for service model of payment for
hospital services. This model dismantled global budgeting, allowed the single
payer and universal access principles to be respected and still provides
incentive to deliver services at a lesser cost. This has also set up a dynamic
of inter-hospital competition, as each organization seeks to attract people
(people now represent income as opposed to expense). While this program is only
partially successful, the entrepreneurialization of medical services has
provided improvements.
In Canada we had the Romano Report. Mr. Romano sought to propagate
the existing system absent a major overarching strategic change and requested
$15 Billion to fix healthcare for a generation. The System has taken that $15
Billion, chewed it up and left waiting lists in its wake. This reality should
be evidence enough to make the point, that putting more money into large
organizations which are absent a rationalising influence toward outcome, just
means the organization uses more money. The present way healthcare is managed
in Canada will ensure that the more we pay, the more will be spent and the
deficiencies will continue to exist.
The United States system is much maligned by many in the debate
around healthcare, as there is an absence of universal provision of healthcare.
The key element to advancement of medical services is that ability for a system
to be well enough resourced to have sufficient absorptive capacity to utilize
new technology. Additionally, innovation is critical as a means to advance
medical technology. When one examines other goods and services in society, such
as a refrigerator, one witness the following: the people with large resources
purchase the frig first and then as the technology gains profile and is proving
useful, gradually the frig is purchased by the less wealthy as production volume
reduces cost, until finally the marvels of mass production makes it possible
for all people to have one - this is called the product cycle. In the context
of utilitarian ethics, which is the foundation of universal medical services,
if a given technology is undeliverable to all, nobody gets it. This reality stifles
the introduction of technologies and retards innovation. In the United States,
the bottom socioeconomic groups have very poor medical treatment, but the top
25% of US society has the best in the world. This seems unfair on the surface,
but the top 25% of medical treatment in the US is responsible for the mass of
the innovation in medical services worldwide. Technologies are being used in
this stratum and as they become more widely used they filter through the system
until they become ubiquitous. If that supper resourced stratum were absent, the
whole of humanity would suffer. This is in no way a theory – it is a fact – a fact
that unassessed leaves us all wanting.
Innovation is best initiated through small nimble organisations.
In British Columbia, the introduction of a new piece of equipment is difficult,
given the monolithic nature of our system, in other countries where service
provision is fragmented in to small service providers, the ability to try a new
piece of equipment is easier to facilitate – absorptive capacity grows where
small nimble actors are looking for an edge or are just inherently innovative. Advancement
in any field is most often a product of heuristics, as our system is now
structured, heuristically motivated change is virtually non-existent.
The United States system overall is costly, because there is
provision for people to choose medical services and pay for them, standing in
contrast to Canada where service is provided but has limited choice. The US
system is less than ideal, and I would concede less ideal overall than the
Canadian system – for the same reasons – both systems have fallen prey to
distorting policy, which retards the effective deployment of best practices. In
the United States industry actors have lobbied government for policy that
protects incumbent healthcare providers and retards the natural functioning of
the market. The United States also has monopolistic professional organisations
that effect influence over policy in a manner that is beneficial to them but
harms the system overall. The Canadian system requires a lower portion of GDP
because the government is rationing services, while in the United States,
people are purchasing what they want. There are a number of detrimental
occurrences emerging from the US system, but there are valuable lessons to be
learned there.
The whole issue of capacity is a product of resources flowing to
the system, when markets are at play rationing to control costs is absent, as
services expand as people’s enthusiasm to pay increases. One of the largest
constraints to our system presently is resources flowing to healthcare are
retarded by our present mode of financing (single payer) the system. The single
payer system seems almost inextricably linked philosophically to universality;
this is especially true in the Canadian context. The solution to capacity is
critical, I am unsure under a single payer system how we can to address it,
except to extract ever greater funding from the citizenry. The only solution to
capacity in the present system is better productivity; this can be readily
addressed by a single payer system by introducing market forces under a single
administrative umbrella – as exemplified by the National Health Service in the
United Kingdom and the privatisation of hospitals.
A medical system uninhibited by monopolistic policies would most
certainly serve the public interest better in the long run. However, there is a
political realty that dictates that whether another system is better at
providing health services or not, the Canadian public are strongly committed to
a single payer system. In view of this political reality one needs to
contemplate the delivery of medical services in the context of a single
government entity. Once this has been conceded, in the light of political
expediency rather than the unfettered pursuit of the best solution, one must
turn their thinking to ways to introduce market forces in a single payer
system. Introduction of market forces into a monolithic system is done by the
provisioning of the individual with the resources and then letting the service
providers respond to that person with the resources, with services. This is a
flow of funds issue, and by provisioning the service user with resources and
options, service providers become responsive to the people they are serving. In
this way demand is responded to more vigorously with the same resources, as
providers seek to increase revenue with their existing asset base.
In BC we have a single provider of car insurance (ICBC). Everyone
gets their insurance from one provider, yet the provision of car repair
services is still provided through a vibrant market. I believe this model
transfers well to the provision of healthcare in Canada, providing all the
ingredients to meet the public requirements efficiently and the political
imperative presently projected by the majority of Canadians. Each Canadian
would purchase insurance from a single medical insurer and be allowed to seek
treatment where they prefer. The forced participation in an insurance program
is a breach of the personal choice; however, this breach is then mitigated to
some degree by the provision of choice with respect to treatment providers.
The “ICBC” model would allow for a broader array of services to
emerge. The present model is unresponsive to demand and is slow to absorb new
technology and hence productivity is retarded. Healthcare services would
fracture in the way other services fracture when they evolve under the
influence of a rigorous market. One needs only observe other complex services
in society to witness the sophistication that addresses the management
processes in all industry, to have confidence that medical services, while
unique, can be well addressed by the creative application of market mechanisms.
All the challenges related to centres of excellence and capacity, are attended
to by a dynamic where knowledge is applied most closely to the challenge at
hand. Centrally planned systems simply lack the capacity for the spontaneous
emergence of phenotypes and the natural clustering of services that is achieved
through the unfettered process of human association. The dynamics that emerge
from the provision of services in the context of technologies, if brought to
bear on the challenge of healthcare, will determine where and the nature of
services provided.
The ICBC” model addresses the migration of services and human
resources by only having a single insurer. The issue of the absence of
competition for the single insurer could be addressed by an exterior bench
marking process to other jurisdictions throughout the world. In many ways the
“ICBC” model exists now, the only change would be that if private entities saw
an opportunity of offer services, they would be allowed to.
A group of doctors may decide to open a small hospital to service
an area presently poorly served by the existing hospital network. It is
impossible to predict how the ingenuity of human response to the challenge of
healthcare provision may end up looking, and that is point really, because free
human response to any challenge is unpredictable and when viewed in retrospect,
free human response has generally always fostered improvement. Our present
system leaves much of that responsive ingenuity in a latent state.
With more service providers working to attract people to services,
more and better services will emerge. In this environment productivity is
greatly increased and services improved and so rather than rationing the supply
of services, overall systemic capacity is increased. We know this to be true,
because it is repeatedly demonstrated in the economy at large, where market
forces work in the favour of the consumer and society as a whole. This
assertion is substantiated by a cursory review of other services in society,
there are more gas stations than we need, and gas comes to us in the volumes we
need, when we need it and where we need. Redundancy is very important in
essential services to ensure when a large scale catastrophic event transpires
there is sufficient system capacity to cope – presently our system is over
taxed in the absence of any negative events, with day to day demand rendering a
circumstance of “hallway medicine”. The private sector provides an abundance of
competing services, in this context the pure unit cost of relative assets
reduces and more of the same assets are introduced to the market. Instead of one
MRI at the town hospital, there would be several clinics dispersed conveniently
around the town, like Starbucks and 7 elevens. This dynamic provides more and
better services, we know this to be true because, everywhere you look you see
it happening – there’s several car dealers as opposed to one – an equally
complex set of products and services as medical services.
In order to effectively discuss the transformation of a system as
complex as the medical system, one needs to contemplate obstructions to change.
The primary obstruction to change at play now are the people who have worked to
from the present systems structure – as is often the case. Doctors, Nurses and
other personal have established themselves in the system and view change as a
threat. Medical professionals in US, France, Japan, Sweden and other countries
do equally as well or better than Canadian personnel: so allowing market forces
to come into play really offers opportunity. Opportunity, as professionals can
extract extra revenue by investing in assets related to the provision of
medical services. By allowing medical professionals greater access to more and
varied revenue streams related to their respective endeavours, they are better
able to be competitive in the application of their skills, thus providing
opportunity for reduced immediate operation costs.
The market works elsewhere, we need to have an open mind in the
provision of medical services and products.
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