While I'm not super familiar with the ambulance case, I think that's just not how it operates. It happens in corporations all the time as well, there's teams managing capital/equipment (ambulance) and HR managing the people (paramedics). The number of ambulance probably is matched to the staffing plan submitted by HR, and asset lifecycle/retirements. Province approves plan to buy ambulances, which likely have been in plan for years, then HR tries to hire the number of paramedics to staff them, which may face it's own challenges. There may be mismatches at some points in time, but I doubt the plan is to buy a bunch of spare ambulances to collect dust.
I think our entirely publicly funded model just isn't sustainable. Healthcare costs have grown partially because medicine has similar challenges as childcare, where wages increase with inflation/cost of living but productivity does not. Except healthcare workers have significantly stronger negotiating power than childcare workers. Doctors may be making 2x as 10 years ago, but they are not able to see double the amount of patients. There are advancements in Healthcare but they often add complexity (more complex diseases are now treatable = more time and wages) faster than we are increasing efficiency. The net result is we need more and more money to fund healthcare and one way to inject that capital is private insurance. There's this stigma with private systems that largely comes from the US, but there are very successful public-private systems as well. Fairness is a good goal, but if it results in everyone waiting too long, letting some people cut the line while reducing waits for everyone, isn't always the worst idea.
What the US can learn from other countries’ health systems.
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