Letters to the Editor: July/August 2025

The Cost of Care

As Monica Kidd writes in her cover story, “Need a Knee Replacement? You Can Get It at the Mall” (May), Canada is known for its “universal” health care system. However, we still come second to big-profit interests. According to a 2015 Angus Reid study, nearly 25 percent of Canadians chose not to fill or renew a prescription in the previous year due to the cost of medication. This often results in many low-income patients returning to the hospital, ultimately costing the health care system more than if the prescriptions had been covered. We continue to be one of the world’s only high-income nations with universal health care (theoretically, anyway) but with no similar blanket coverage for prescribed medication. I fear that our system will eventually include crucial treatments that are not universally accessible in a timely manner, except to those with the money to access them privately at for-big-profit prices.

Frank Sterle Jr. White Rock, BC

Other countries with universal health care systems—including the UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands—have used the private sector to their advantage and incentivized greater efficiency through alternative funding models. While living in the UK for twelve years, my wife and I used the private-pay option several times when we couldn’t get timely care from the public system. We had very satisfactory outcomes at a reasonable cost. Although Canada’s health care system is fine once you get seen and treated, our “enforced egalitarianism” is hurting the people it is meant to serve, in both timeliness and needless suffering.

Bruce Brady Victoria, BC

Loneliness Epidemic

In the May issue, authors Josh Greenblatt (“Sobbing at the Spa”) and Jadine Ngan and Tahmeed Shafiq (“What Happens after a Death on Campus”) make numerous thoughtful, wise, and well-researched comments and observations. Both articles direct our attention to one very prevalent ailment or complaint in our modern-day society: the scourge of loneliness. Despite all of our attempts to deal with loneliness by way of fitness centres, social media sites, university counselling services, singles bars, dating apps—the list goes on and on, with at least some of them being very worthwhile—we fail to see that loneliness can be resolved only by being in meaningful community with others. Spas are great; counselling services are vital; social media can at times help us stay connected with friends—but are they actually capable of keeping loneliness at bay?

Pete van Geest London, ON

Get Musked

I was incensed by Paul Adams’s article “I Regret My Tesla” (thewalrus.ca), wherein he tries, unsuccessfully, to absolve himself of his poor decision to buy a Tesla Model Y in September of 2023. By this time, the unreliability of the Tesla was widely known and reported; websites like TopSpeed identified the Model Y as having “build quality issues,” like “unintended braking,” that are inherent to all of the company’s cars. And the Tesla Model Y was hardly the only EV SUV/crossover on the market by then. Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Kia, and others offered higher-end EV crossovers. Not to mention that Elon Musk’s reputation as a bigot was also well known by then. Adams should admit that he was duped by Musk and is now suffering a huge amount of buyer’s remorse because his resale value has plummeted. Spare us the whining.

Vickie Morris Sechelt, BC