HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1986-01-29, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29,1986
Technology should be beneficial
Technology started out as the greatest boon to mankind,
since the discovery of fire, tokeephim warm. Somewhere along
the way something’s got a little out of whack.
When the first human discovered that by putting a log under
a heavy load and rolling it, he took a gigantic step toward
making the living of people easier. Nearly all the early advances
in technology from the axe to the discovery of how to make iron
added to the ease of life for all inhabitants.
Perhaps the one detriment of the technology of the early age
was that iron tipped spears and arrows that made hunting
animals for food more efficient, also made hunting other people
for conquering more efficient.
Somewhere along the way, however, technology went from
helping all people, to being a way that one segment of society
could gain economic power at the expense of another. New
inventions were adopted, not so much because they were really
needed, but because someone could make a big profit from
them.
Take for instance the latest news that researchers in the U.S.
have come up with a hormone which, when injected into dairy
cattle, can increase milk production by up to 40 per cent. It will,
an expert recently told the annual meeting of the Ontario Milk
Board in Toronto recently, cut the number of dairy farmers in
half in the next few years. In a television interview the expert
made no consoling statements that this would better the lot of
dairy farmers. Those left in business wouldn ’ t be any better off,
he said. They’djust be able to hang on. Those who didn’t adopt
the new technology would be out of business.
The new technology will keep the lucky farmers just where
they are and will destroy half the family farms that are doing
quite well under the current standards. It will hurt rural
communities that depend on the farm population. It will destroy
some businesses that simply won’t have enough customers
living out there on the farms. Consumers will benefit but by how
much? How much does a family really spend on milk and milk
products in a year anyway? Probably less than they spend on
perfumes, soaps and deodorants.
If people were starving and cutting the cost of milk would
save lives, then there would be some real benefit in the new
technology but all this would do is put a few more dollars a year
into disposable income for people to buy non-essentials.
The only real beneficiary of this technology will be the
company that invented the process. They have done in a legal
way what the street gangs in the protection racket have done
illegally: told people ifyou don’t use our service, we’ll close you
down. Technology too often today isn’t a case of real benefit to
humanity but of blackmail on the part of a few against the many.
Letter
to the editor
Follow
your
heart
DEAR EDITOR.
Follow your heart - have a heart
for the Heart Fund. February is
heart month and once again
canvassing will begin in Blyth for
the Heart and Stroke Foundation of
Ontario. Give to the research that
will save more lives. The grim
reality is that heart disease and
stroke kill as many Canadians as all
other diseases combined.
The canvassers calling on you in
Blyth in the next several weeks will
be: Alma Madill. Linda Stewart,
Stewart Ament, Judy Brown. Mary
Lou Stewart. Donna Hamm. Karen
Stewart, Sheron Stadelmann, Can
dice Howson and Mary Holland.
Lois Van Vliet
Chairman of the Heart and Stroke
Foundation for the Village of Blyth
Room
for compromise
on OHIP
From the age of five when we first start to develop our own
wills, none of us like to be told what we must do. So it is no
wonder that doctors, even those who don’t extra-bill their
patients over the OHIP rates, have reacted in anger against the
provincial government’s attempts to ban extra billing.
Last week Premier David Peterson indicated his government
might be willing tocompromise on some of the harsh provisions
ofthebillthatwould legislate away the right of doctors to
charge more than theOHIPrates. It’s a welcome sign and there
should be some softening of positions on both sides.
While the majority of doctors are against the government
simply because they don’t like being forced to do anything,
there are also doctors who still see themselves as entrepreneurs
who should be able to tocharge what the market will bear. They
look with envy at the position of doctors south of the border who
can earn much more than doctors here because they can set
their own rates, often very high rates.
They are apt to remember the “good old days’’ before
universal medicare was introduced in Canada and they had less
bureaucracy to deal with and nobody telling them what they
could charge. They may not remember, however, how hard it
was to collect bills from some customers in those days and how
government medical plans meant they automatically got paid
for every patient they saw. They may not remember that there
were people who came to them in very bad shape because the
fear of medical bills kept them away from the doctor when they
should have come for immediate treatment. They may not
remember that they were often unable to put someone in
hospital because they couldn’t afford the high cost of a hospital
stay.
The Liberal governments, both in Toronto and the federal
Liberals who brought in the legislation to penalize provinces
that allow extrabilling, are also caught up in their own ideology.
They believe, rightly, that everyone should have the right to
quality health care and that while doctors, because of their high
education and stress-related jobs, deserve a substantial
income, they shouldn’t be able to force people to pay more than
they can afford when people are in need of medical care. But
they also are so committeed to the ideal that they forget another
thing Canadians are committed to: freedom.
There should be a way of discouraging doctors from
overbilling without legislation being so authoritarian. Could
not, for instance, doctors be allowed to charge more than OHIP
rates but if they do, they are completely outside the plan. They
would not be able to collect any money from OHIP, and their
patients would have to pay the entire fee themselves. It would
mean that doctors would once again have freedom but also the
responsibility of collecting their own bills. It would give real
incentive to doctors to remain in the plan and to patients to seek
doctors who were inside the plan.
Perhaps there should also be some fee such doctors should
pay so taxpayers can recover the heavy subsidy we have
invested in their education.
The government and Health Minister Murray Elston are
right in their goal but they must find a method of obtaining the
goal without trampling other cherished goals such as freedom
of choice.
Letter from the editor
Dear Readers:
When people are toting up the
“natural resources” of Huron
county they’re apt to list the
number of acres of various classes
of farmland, the salt mine of
Goderich, the natural beauty that
makes this a tourist’s favourite for
visiting and so on. We’re apt to
overlook the most important natur
al resource of all as far as
development goes: the minds and
imagination of our people.
One of the things that makes
Huron county special is that we
havesuchawidemix of people.
This being a prosperous, (well, as
prosperous as it gets these days)
farming area, naturally farmers
make up a good part of the
population but we also have all the
regular urban jobs from garage
mechanics to dress-shop owners,
lawyers to plumbers. We even
have a nationally-known archi
tect’s firm. We have actors and
writers and television people. We
have photographers and weavers.
Our children can grown up seeing a
wide variety of people from all
walks of life: probably a greater
potential list of role models than
anywhere else in the country.
We’ve got so much variety, but
there's room for so much more. Too
often there’s the temptation on the
part of everyone from consumers to
politicians, to see growth (or
“progress”) in terms of some
nationally-known company locat
ing in our communities. We seek
industry in the form of some big
company locating from Toronto or
Chicago or Tokyo. We seek retail
business in the form of a local outlet
for a chain.
Real long-term growth, how
ever, may come by encouraging
our own people to put their ideas to
work. We need to find ways of
helping people get started when
they’ve got a good idea. Big
Continued on page 6
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