The pandemic has opened the door to disaster capitalism, that is, it has given the greedy rich an excuse to exploit the powerless and poor, all under the guise it is for our benefit.
Thus, here in Ontario, we are losing our long enjoyed health benefits.
We didn’t see the erosion coming of course, covid up ended everything in our lives. We have been too busy trying to survive.
Ah, but the wealthy always have their eyes, nose and ears tuned to dollar opportunities.
The pandemic has set back surgeries and the like, and this is true. There is a huge backlog.
But instead of funding our nurses and hospitals, the government had a better idea in mind. One that will ultimately end OHIP and make doctors, politicians, pharmaceutical companies. insurance companies and businessmen enormously wealthy. And the rest of us, screamingly poor and sick.
So they create a situation in which private health care are allowed to take OHIP patients, to alleviate the backlog of much needed medical help. Oh, doesn’t that sound good?
NOT.
There is nothing good about private business mucking about in health care. It turns a right into a luxury. That is, it is no longer a right to be healthy, but a privilege. Just as we see that the right to have shelter is now a privilege. A privilege for the RICH ONLY.
They stealthily do this, first by gradually eroding the rights of the sick, the elderly, the poor. Those least able to fight back and stop this. Once it gets past them, then it is too late to turn back and then everyone’s rights are gone.
We’ve had free health care so long, we forget the insidious nature of capitalism. Big business has nothing to do with charity. Nothing to do with rights. It only has to do with money. Money for shareholders. It is only and always about the bottom line. People are just wallets and bank accounts and credit. They don’t care whether you live or die. They don’t care about your problems or conditions.
Health clinics are for profit private businesses. Their goal is to make money. Not take care of people. Thus, they upsell. They happily take what OHIP gives them, but that is not enough. They are a business, not a charity. They want to make huge profits. Now there will be additional never heard of costs to the patient, that will result in out of pocket expenses in the thousands.
It is already happening. I have heard lots of complaints from people who are now expected to pay thousands of dollars for procedures that are FREE under OHIP. At a private clinic, people feel pressured to have more than is necessary done, at a huge cost. If they don’t want the upsell, then they wait just as long for a surgery at the clinic as they would for a hospital stay. If they pay, they get immediate surgery. The result is they either fork over lots of money, or worse, they delay or forgo having necessary surgery done.
Nurses and professionals of course want to work in these places because they are underpaid and working in deteriorating hospitals. Private clinics are state of the art, top of the line in cleanliness and professionalism – something our hospitals and staff used to be, because the money went there.
Eventually, OHIP will disappear and we will have private insurance – if you can afford it.
Gradually, Ford, our greedy business minded Premier, who has also decided to strip us of our beautiful Greenbelt for housing – for the RICH under the guise it is to alleviate homelessness (I ask you, who will be able to buy these homes, built on prime land, who, to begin with can’t even afford rent. Do you really believe those houses will be for low income???! Developers don ‘t build for poor people. Especially on choice land!)
We are on a slippery slope to the American health system. That is NO health system. Except if you are rich.
I predict that in two years, there will be little, if anything left of OHIP. And when other provinces see the money they too can make, all of Canada will follow suit.
Personally, I would rather pay more for my OHIP through my taxes each year, as do countries like Norway and Denmark, than to have to navigate and negotiate and beg for insurance and end up penniless and sick, or dead.
I ask you, what is government for? It is to PROTECT PEOPLE. It is suppose to be socialist. Get that through your heads. It suppose to be FOR the people, not for business, not for profit. The money is there. OUR MONEY. The government is NOT cash strapped. It is just full of greedy politicians not the least bit caring about us. They are not suppose to take advantage of situations for their own benefit. The government is not a corporation, not a private business. Our tax dollars are suppose to be used for US. For our health care, schooling, roads, police…don’t you understand that?
Beware. It does not end here. These type of politicians will come for our school system next.
We have a chance to vote this guy out in October. Let’s do it. Before we become the mess that the United States is.
I suggest you read Bernie Sanders book, It’s Okay to be Angry about Capitalism, and see how little the Americans have compared to us, and where we are heading.