Madam Speaker, the crux of the matter is that when we are looking at saving our publicly funded health care system it boils down to resources.
The fact is that we have a situation where the numbers of people who are working are constricting. Right now four people work for every retiree. In the next 20 years two people will be working for every retiree. That, in and of itself, will put unsustainable demands on our health care system. No matter what we do in terms of rationalizing our resources, which we have to do, the bottom line is that we have to find money somewhere.
Raising taxes, we would argue, is not an option because it has a depressing effect on our economy and will restrict the amount of money coming back into our system for social programs like health care.
Where do we find the money? Our only other option is in the private sector. I would argue that allowing parallel private services would take the demand out of the public system without removing resources. If we do that we would have a sustainable public health care system in the future.
As my colleague beside me said, why do we not turn the table on the Americans? Why not have American patients come to our private system so they will pay money into our system which would then go to support our public system?