"COVID is a good kick in the butt for the health care system - it basically illuminated all the weaknesses and absurdities. I bet you people will have taking eHealth more seriously and with more urgency now."
Alvin, Couldn't agree more. Digs into national myths such as the idea that Canada has a public healthcare system that is the best in the world. Fact check, Canada neither has a public healthcare system nor is our healthcare system anywhere near the best in the world. Years ago I think the OECD ranked us 30th or something in the world and I think Covid-19 has shown us that that is an incredibly generous ranking. Furthermore, Canada doesn't really have a public health system. We have something more like a mixed-private public de-centralized ad hoc system of limited universal health coverage, with a mixture of government and industry association regulatory oversight?
In other news I like how the narrative in Canada is changing into we did a good job and the costs were hard but necessary. This is the worst form of back rationalization. First, it's akin to George Bush claiming "mission accomplished" on that navy ship. Second, Canada's overall response to date is highly mediocre and it's cost us dearly in blood and treasure. Like the Finance Minister stood up the other day and with a straight face said spending 250 billion or whatever to date was a necessary step and we did a good job. Sure, that makes sense I don't disagree but how about you stand up there and apologize for the inept leadership of your government (I'm not absolving any other level of government that should also apologize) that through rigidity of thinking, lack of vision, and failure to act decisively, cost thousands of Canadian lives and cost us untold tens of billions of dollars in excess costs relative to better organized international peers. Maybe you think I'm being too harsh but think how much good 75 billion of that money could do in fixing Long-term care or other systematic issues in our health system. If we've learned anything from this it's that leadership matters.