Dear John,

My name is Bacchus Barua, and I am the Director of Health Policy Studies here at the Fraser Institute.

All those studies you see us release about hospital wait times, public health insurance, and the performance of health care systems around the world? Those are the result of the hard work done by our amazing team here at the Institute.

Our mission is simple: to measure the performance of our health care system and explore ways to offer better universal health care for all Canadians.

In August, we completed our latest study calculating how much our “free” health care system actually costs Canadian families. We found that a typical Canadian family of four will pay almost $16,000 for public health care insurance this year. This cost has increased substantially over the last 25 years, rising much more quickly than income and inflation during the same period.

If those high costs generated great results, one could argue that they are justified.

Unfortunately, another study we put out this year found that despite spending more on health care as a share of the economy than every other developed country with universal coverage, Canada has some of the lowest numbers of doctors, hospital beds, and medical technologies.

And just a few weeks ago, we released our annual Waiting Your Turn survey of physicians across Canada, which reported a median wait time for medically necessary treatment of 27.4 weeks — the LONGEST EVER RECORDED.

Consider this: in 1993, wait times were 9.3 weeks. In 2019 – before COVID – wait times were 20.9 weeks.

While this is clearly all bad news, there is a silver lining: Canadians are paying attention. I’m happy to report that these studies dominated headlines this year.

They appeared in newspapers from coast-to-coast, were covered on radio segments all across the country, and reached millions of people through our social media channels.

As a result, our work has seriously moved the needle on public opinion, and in the public policy realm as well.

In fact, I have personally never seen such openness to the kind of reforms our health care systems desperately need – both from the general public and policymakers – as I see right now.

This is why we need to keep going!

John, we do not accept government money to conduct our research. We rely entirely on supporters like you.

Will you help us continue with a donation today?

Every dollar you donate will help ensure that our governments are held accountable for years to come.

Thank you for your support.

From everyone at the Fraser Institute, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Sincerely,

Bacchus Barua
Director, Health Policy Studies
The Fraser Institute