Entrepreneurs will save the health system, not the politicians

Stevens LeBlanc/JOURNAL DE QUEBE

Jasmin Guénette

Monday, 5 February 2018 15:09

UPDATE
Monday, 5 February 2018 15:09

Look at this article

Marc Lacroix has made the cover of the Journal de Montréal on January 31st. Medical Clinics Lacroix already have seven facilities in Quebec city, Montreal and Laval. And Marc Lacroix, an entrepreneur in the soul, wants to continue the expansion of its clinic, where his patients are a rare commodity in health : access and time with their doctor.

I met him a few times in the past and I am very happy to see speak this way of his ambitions. These are the entrepreneurs like him who, increasingly, will treat the Quebecois, not the government. Why? Because, since patients who go to the private clinics are a source of income for the doctor and the owner of the clinic, the doctor wants to do well and offers a good service. It attracts and retains its customers by offering a good service in a pleasant environment.

In contrast, patients in hospitals are an expense for the government, therefore a burden and not customers. It is for this that we wait long hours in the emergency department : the government rations care in the hope of keeping the cost as low as possible, whereas in the private clinics, we offer good service to attract more patients.

The benefits of competition

In the market of private clinics, competition plays a very positive role. Customers can choose their clinic, which pushes entrepreneurs to provide good service at competitive prices and to be attentive to the needs of customers. Some clinics offer coffee and cookies during the wait. Is it that someone has already offered a coffee while waiting at the hospital by the receptionist? I very much doubt it!

In Quebec, hospital-based care offered by the State are monopolistic : this means that no competition can force them to improve. All hospitals are managed by the State. There is not even a competition of hospitals run by private enterprise, but funded by the public, such as it is, however, in Sweden and elsewhere. No, nothing other than the ” all public “.

Even the government goes to the private!

It’s still ironic to hear the minister of Health and said that he could intervene if it judges that the number of doctors in the private sector are too high. The government itself, said Dr. Luc Bessette in a video that I made, is the largest consumer of private medicine in Quebec, through the CSST and the SAAQ. These two insurers have long understood that if they went to the public… they would be waiting far too long! This would cost more in compensation to their employees. Amazing, when even!

As long as the current monopoly will persist, the problems that we are currently experiencing will not be resolved not. Even if one tries bureaucratic reform after reform bureaucratic, as it has been doing it for years.

These are the Marc Lacroix, this world who will treat Quebec in the future and that will save the health care system. Not Gaétan Barrette, or other ministers, which will continue to apply the same old recipe ineffective.