Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We assume in this country that universal health care, the timely access to affordable health services, improves the health of our socially disadvantaged groups. A while ago, research performed by a group at the Institute for Clinical Evaluation Services tested that assumption and found, as published in the journal “Health Affairs,” that the results of the study contradict our assumption.
The research team found that people with low income and/or low levels of education suffered from higher than normal incidences of cardiovascular disease, a not surprising and well-known situation among poor people. The researchers, through their project, tried to determine if universal access to health services would change that finding, but their research showed that the poor use more health services than the wealthy, but that does not mean that they get better health outcomes because of it. A quote from the Globe and Mail said the poor visit physicians in hospitals more often, not because it’s free but because they are sicker. All of us, whether rich or poor, use health care services when we have to, when we’re sick. Few of us use health care services in a preventive way.
The message in the research findings is this: universal health care does not get us healthy and keep us healthy. Medicare is not the silver bullet to ensure a healthy population. What we need are tools to get us healthy in the first place, to attack the causes of poor health, to be preventative instead of reactive.
In Canada, Mr. Speaker, we spend about 40 percent of our budgets on health care, about 25 percent on education, and only 15 percent on social welfare programs. By comparison, European countries spend twice as much as we do on social welfare programs, and the result of that spending is that Europeans spend less on health and have better health outcomes.
We need to put greater effort into tackling poverty, low education levels, and poor and inequitable housing. No surprise to us in this room. Improvements in these areas will create healthier environments and, by default, healthier citizens.
In light of these findings, Mr. Speaker, the development of an Anti-Poverty Strategy is even more necessary. Throwing more money at health is not the answer. Universal health care is not the answer. Until we improve living conditions for the socially disadvantaged of our territory, we cannot hope for universally healthy residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
