Livent Principals Going To Jail For Screwing Investors......

.....and the reality is that you and I are labeled as taxpayers but aren't we also investors?

A memo from McGuinty

So what if we blew a billion on eHealth?

By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Memo To: All hands

From: Premier Dalton McGuinty

Re: eHealth Ontario

Dear colleagues:

It occurs to me we may be addressing the fact we've now spent close to $1 billion not delivering on eHealth in the wrong way.

You know, those computerized medical records we keep promising to create that will easily move with patients through Ontario's health care system, thus improving their quality of care and saving taxpayers money.

First, let me emphasize that I had absolutely no idea there were such huge problems with this thing going back to when we took power in 2003. After all, I'm just the premier.

Further, I can vouch for the fact Health Minister David Caplan and his predecessor, George Smitherman, were as utterly clueless as I was.

After all, if they were responsible for this fiasco, which occurred over six years right under their noses, I would have fired them both by now, wouldn't I? And did I? No! Hence, they must be blameless.

Anyway, I think we may be able to turn this whole spending money not to provide health care services thing to our advantage.

In fact, spending almost $1 billion of public money -- and counting -- not to deliver computerized medical records to the public, could be a blessing in disguise.

In other words, it's the perfect way to ease into not spending the entire $42.6 billion annual health care budget on ... er ... health.

Hear me out. It would be like during the Cold War when the military generals on both sides told their respective political leaders: "Look, suppose we accidentally fired off a single nuclear missile by mistake and levelled Moscow. (Or Washington.) Now, as regrettable as that might be, we would then have two options. We could either apologize and promise to do better in future (pretty much what I've been saying on eHealth, by the way) or, we could say 'screw this, let's fire off all of our nukes and take the enemy by surprise'."

I suggest we do the same to the people of Ontario.

After all, so we accidentally blew almost $1 billion not delivering computerized medical records to Ontarians in a health care system that is perpetually starved for cash and regularly screws patients out of needed treatments, drugs, operations, equipment and rehabilitation.

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

So what? What's the big deal with not having computerized records anyway? So more people get prescribed the wrong drugs and a few of them die as a result. So doctors duplicate tests because they don't know the patient's medical history. So patients waiting in emergency rooms for treatment have to wait longer while intake workers try to figure out their medical histories on the fly. No biggie.

That's why I recommend we go for the whole enchilada and spend the entire annual $42.6 billion health care budget -- roughly 40% of all government spending -- on not delivering health care services to Ontarians.

Take doctors -- please. You know how it is with doctors. First they see patients and the next thing you know they want to diagnose, treat and cure them. Apparently these clowns think money grows on trees, unlike our thrifty eHealth consultants.

The problem is with all this -- ugh! -- treatment going on, you then have to hire more nurses and hospital technicians and pay for more tests, equipment and beds. It's a vicious circle. Heck, I'd engineer a doctor shortage to save money if Bob Rae hadn't beat me to it two decades ago.

But what we could do is pay doctors not to see patients. Then we could conduct random audits of doctors by contacting their patients and asking them to confirm they did not receive any medical care on a given day.

We could call it "fee for no service" medicine. Your thoughts?

Sincerely, Dalton

LORRIE.GOLDSTEIN@SUNMEDIA.CA