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The Editor: 

It seems our Premier Brad Wall believes that private resource investments will benefit some interests in Saskatchewan more than public investments, where benefits could become available to all provincial residents. Examples are: private liquor stores, MRIs, the sale of blood plasma and so on. This appears to be an endeavour to diminish Canada’s public single payer healthcare program. This poses the question … Will private health care programs deliver necessary health care to all Saskatchewan residents at a lessor cost than a publicly funded program? 

In 2010, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) compared costs of public versus private electricity. The study involved 34 wealthy OECD countries. They found the private costs for electricity was 23.1 per cent greater than the costs for electricity being delivered by a publicly funded program. 

In France, the cost of water provided by the private sector was 16.6 per cent higher than water supplied through municipal provision. 

In 2011, voting in a referendum, 96 per cent of the citizens in Italy indicated they would prefer to have their water supplied through a public service. 

Since 1970, the U.S. Institute of Medicine has been a non-profit component of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The following is the institute’s observation of private US healthcare costs — Thirty cents of every medical dollar goes to unnecessary health care, deceitful paperwork and fraud. The $750 billion in annual waste is more than the Pentagon budget, and more than enough to care for every American who lacks health insurance. 

Leo Kurbenbach

Saskatoon