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Most of us as Canadians have never had to worry about being sick and not being able to afford to go to the hospital or a doctor's office. What would you do if you or your child needed to see a doctor or a nurse and you could not afford to pay for it? Did you know the average cost of having a heart attack is about $65,000?

Our medicare system is based on the principles of the Canada Health Act (Bill C-3).

These are: public accountability, comprehensive (must cover necessary in hospital, medical and surgical-dental services), universal (all Canadians), portable (available after three months of residency and no extra charge for care out of province) and accessible (no user fees and health care providers must be reimbursed adequately).

In Canada there is an explosion of private health clinics that operate to make money from people being sick. There are currently 42 for-profit MRI and CT clinics in Ontario. There is evidence these clinics violate the Canada Health Act through extra billing for medically necessary procedures. They also sell queue-jumping services for thousands of dollars which allows people to move up waiting lists faster. For-profit health care is about shareholders, not about patient care or safety or saving working families some hard earned money.

There is no evidence to support claims that increasing for profit private elements into our medicare system will save money or improve care. For-profit health care actually undermines medicare. It robs the public system of money, nurses, and doctors. This makes wait times longer overall. The result is a two-tier system - one for the rich and one for the average Canadian.

For-profit health care also caters to the 'easier to treat' patients, which increases profits for shareholders. Evidence from experiments done internationally with privatization of health care has proven there is no such thing as a parallel system. More for-profit health care cannot exist as add-ons to medicare because it takes away from Canadians.

As a registered nurse, I am aware of the challenges our current public health care system faces. The cutbacks from the early 1990s have paved the way for privatization of health care. In 2002, Romanow looked for evidence that for-profit health care would benefit Canadians.

He could not find any evidence to support the claims being currently made.

There is evidence to suggest wait times are actually longer in areas with the most privatization of health care (as in Montreal, Que.).

It is time to stop turning a blind eye to the red flags associated with for profit health care. Let's encourage our governments to enforce the Canada Health Act and preserve our medicare system for tomorrow.

- Sonja Boucher is NWT vice-president of the Northern Territories Federation of Labour