LETTER: Rationale for private health care doesn't make sense

BradfordToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to Doug Ford's move toward private health-care options.

I came home the other day, and my living room light wouldn’t turn on. I was explaining it to a neighbour, and he suggested I sell my house. He is a real estate agent and would be able to help me out.

He also mentioned that he had a friend with a condo building that I could move into where I would pay fees to have someone look after stuff like that for me. I have another friend that lives in that condo who said the fees go up off and on, but she never has to think about the electrical or plumbing or whatever. I think I’m going to do it!

Seems pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it? Especially if you consider the neighbour may have loosened the bulb in the first place. Doug Ford’s privatization of healthcare makes about as much sense to me. Why would you not change the light bulb and fix the issue?

I have not met a single person who has heralded the wonders of a private health system. Even the U.S. is trying to change the way the system works there because it doesn’t provide adequate, equitable or affordable service. The last thing that was was our hydro system, and that doesn’t make things look promising either. I feel like I’m living in the twilight zone.

I would like to ask that (Simcoe North MPP) Jill Dunlop please hold some sort of public meeting so this can be explained to me and others feeling this way. I don’t understand the reasoning behind this decision.

I don’t understand how there is money to invest in private health care but not in public health care. I don’t understand how taking doctors from our current system to work in this new private system is going to help.

I don’t understand how using our public money to pay over $100 more for a service we already provide for less is going to help, especially when that money is not going to the doctors or hospitals but to a third party that is there for profit.

Please explain this so that I can stop worrying that this really is all about money for friends of Ford. I am your constituent, and I am spending a significant amount of time every day worrying about how this decision (and quite a few others) are going to impact my kids as they continue to live and farm in this community in 50 years.

Erin McWhirter
Ramara Township