Politics and Health Care

     The other night I was sitting in a pub with my husband and some friends and the the issue of fully funded public higher education came up.  A friend was making the argument that if the Canadian government decided to fully fund all post secondary institutions then everyone would have a degree or post secondary credential of some sort and then no one would want to do jobs like cleaning toilets.  This was an interesting argument that indicated the lack of knowledge and understanding about formal education and how it works in and how it effects a society.  My first response was that equal access and funding does not mean the same thing as everyone being granted a degree.  The reality that there are different levels of motivation, ability and desire to pursue post-secondary education would continue to exist but there would be more equal access to formal education.  In my later reflections on this conversation I began to think, isn't it interesting that someone would automatically think that there needs to be some sort of oppressive force to maintain a socioeconomic hierarchy in which those who do not have the ability to pursue formal education will clean the toilets of those who do have that ability? Isn't it interesting that it is so deeply ingrained that this is simply the only way a society can successfully function. Isn't it interesting that this was how societies were (and some continue to be) prior to public education when oligarchies or aristocracies placed an small group or elite at the top of a hierachy and peasants were at the bottom?  Isn't it also interesting how, in a place like Canada, there was so much struggle to achieve social justice through means like public health insurance and public education yet now many seem determined to let that slip away for the interest of an elite few?
   
     My personal view (which is shared by many) is that health care is a social justice issue.  Recently my husband and I were in Calgary visiting family.  There is an election taking place on Monday.  The energy that is surrounding what will be a very important election for the future of Albertans has made me think more deeply about my own political views and how they are connected to the political landscape of Canada.   

     For me it is mind boggling to think that anyone would support privatizing health care but then I also think that there is much misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about how the public health care system in Canada works.  There are also romanticized ideas about how a privitized system, really meaning the US system, is a great marvel of success when there is much research to discredit this view.  I think that there is a need to educate the public about universal access to health care means for the positive progression of a society.  Why do so many people have the belief that health care is some how free when in reality we all contibute in the form of taxes and in some provinces monthly payments?