Against Privatization: Health Coalition Demands Funding for Hospitals
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- Published on Thursday, 04 February 2016 23:00
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1217 .... February 5, 2016
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Against Privatization:
Health Coalition Demands Funding for Hospitals
The 1960s were about much more than protesting the war in Vietnam. It was also a time of cultural upheaval as a new generation challenged capitalist values, including its shallow democracy, and environmental issues emerged both in the workplace and in the community. One response by the state in the core capitalist countries was to give increased prominence to the welfare state. From the mid-60s into the 1970s, the most significant expansion in the welfare state (particularly in Canada) occurred as major commitments were made to healthcare, education, and income security.
This ‘welfare state’, with its universal programs, came to be identified with security against the instabilities of capitalist markets, equality and progress. Whatever its limits, it... was generally expected that the welfare state would continue to improve over time. The possibility of its reversal was rarely, if at all, considered. But scarcely a decade later in the 1980s, things began to change -- slowly at first but gathering momentum over time, with attacks on unemployment insurance and welfare taking some of the worst hits in Canada. But healthcare, however, seemed to be an exception. It was, we thought, sacred, part of the ‘Canadian identity’, especially in comparison to the largely market provision of healthcare in the USA. Healthcare was said to be untouchable.
This proved to be quite wrong. As the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) submission below powerfully documents, healthcare has become a major site of new profits for the corporate sector. But for the people of Ontario, particularly the working class, it is a system in crisis. Cutbacks are occurring across the country. In Ontario, the cutbacks have been particularly brutal, sending the province to the bottom of the provincial rankings in a range of measures on healthcare provision -- a key part of the Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne's pride in touting that Ontario has the lowest per capita expenditures on programs in the country.
