Mr. Speaker, I will answer the question of what I mean by competition.
I gave the United Kingdom example, not the United States example, where the cost to the consumer is absolutely free. Yet even the United Kingdom has developed internal markets where hospitals can compete against each other in delivering price, service and quality. These are the three fundamental elements of service one finds when there is competition. If we eliminate competition, we find waste, mismanagement, poor service and declining quality. These are the things we have in our health care system today because of lack of competition.
I said nothing about the American situation except that I did not even consider it to be a competitive market. I used the United Kingdom as an example. It is the cradle of social health care systems in our western world.
The hon. member's first question was on which of the five principles we would abandon. We would abandon the 100 per cent publicly funded principle. We would still ensure that health care was largely funded by the taxpayer, but we are not saying there should be an ironclad guarantee that it has to be 100 per cent. I believe publicly administered elimination of competition is totally detrimental to our system.