MARKHAM • "The meeting was a success but the patient died," could serve as an epitaph for last week's Health Ministers meeting to save Medicare. Despite many Canadians' fear that healthcare may soon be DOA, insiders have revealed to the National Post that-- outside the eye of the cameras-- Deputy ministers from several provinces were busy applying the defilibrators to try and jump-start the patient.

According to the source, the talks were set-up to hammer out a unified response to Ottawa's demand for health reform before it would supply more cash transfusions. Spearheaded by Ontario and Alberta, the most vocal critics of Liberal health policies, the negotiations were said to be speeding toward a broad-based accord on saving public healthcare.

The provinces have already made major concessions to find a deal, according to a draft version of the Healthcare Accord for Reforming Medicare (HARM) obtained by the National Post. Under the agreement, Alberta would abandon its controversial new law allowing private unhospitals (a.k.a. "overnight surgical facilities") and Ontario would freeze its privatization of home care.

Ironically, no federal officials were present at the meetings; however, there was an appearance by self-declared Prime Minister-in-waiting, Preston Manning. "Whenever there's discussion of reformizing healthcare, we want to be there," he was quoted as saying. He also pledged to make the accord a cornerstone of his new party's platform. No one can predict how the Liberals will react to the proposals, but Allan Rock would certainly appreciate the removal of those provincial policies that have been such a thorn in his side.

Dr. Ralph's home remedy for saving medicare.

The draft accord obtained by the National Post was produced by the cumbersomely named Solutions-based High-level Intergovernmental Taskforce on Healthcare Accessibility and Preserving Public-Medicare by Endorsing National Standards (SHIT HAPPENS). It includes important initiatives in the following areas:

Protecting Public Medicare for future generations

• To address the funding crisis in public healthcare and enhance its long-term sustainability, the provincial governments will create Public Medicare (Canada) Ltd. to deliver all health services in Canada. After all, what could be more public than a publicly-traded company?
• To ensure all Canadians have a stake in the future of Public Medicare, they will each be issued one share of the new corporation (they may choose instead to receive Dr. Ralph's Home Surgery Kit -- beer included).
• Public Medicare (Canada) Ltd. can access as much funding as necessary to adequately care for all citizens through future public offerings on the stock market.
• Medicare's cashflow requirements would also be reduced by the traditional public company methods: downsizing, outsourcing, deunionizing and moving operations to lower-wage jurisdictions.

• HARM will ensure that publicly-traded healthcare is Universally Accessible to absolutely every Canadian that can Afford it.
• Every citizen, without respect to their location, will have an Equal right to ask for a medically necessary procedure even if they can't afford it. No medical facility can turn away a potential patient before they have an opportunity to request medical assistance.
• All Canadians will have as timely Access to health services as they can possibly Afford. This will prevent the unfair exodus of wealthy medical refugees who are forced to flee to U.S. hospitals in order to get medical attention as soon as they want. Another benefit is that the financial resources they would otherwise dispense outside the country will remain within the Canadian healthcare system.

• To ensure that Public Medicare (Canada) Ltd. is accountable and adheres to the spirit and letter of HARM, the federal government will create Canada Health Act, Inc. (CHAI) to oversee its operations.
• CHAI will be a Publicly traded company that engages world-class Health Management Organizations to continuously audit the medical and financial operations of Public Medicare. Canadians can be confident that they will receive the best healthcare their hard-earned dollars can buy.
• CHAI will provide up-to-date, in-depth information to all Canadians on the state of their health services with an on-going series of 30-second television knowledge forums modeled on those produced by the mutual fund industry.

• Public healthcare is a core Canadian value and Public Medicare (Canada) Ltd. will be important step in ensuring there is value-added healthcare for future generations.
• Public Medicare (Canada) Ltd. is also a good fit with several other Canadian government values such as:
  • Our enviable position as a global leader in corporate concentration and monopolistic control of our economy
  • Canada's unprecidented oligarchic collusion between government and business that has strengthened our cherished ceo-ocracy
  • The country's proud history of key economic sectors being dominated by branch-plants of US multinationals
  • Our impressive tradition of privatization and decimation of the national institutions that bind us together