It takes three months for a patient in the Netherlands to get a knee replacement after seeing their doctor.

It takes 16 months in Saskatchewan.

After the latest budget, the Opposition New Democratic Party was quick to declare that the new funding isn’t doing enough to address problems in the health-care system.

But, the provincial government is spending the most it ever has on health care this year, a trend that has been ongoing for years. In 2018, the government spent $5.8 billion on health care. This year, it plans to spend more than $7 billion. That’s a spending increase that has kept pace with both inflation and population growth and makes up 38 per cent of the entire budget.

The Saskatchewan government is spending $5,800 per person this year on health care. Far from being stingy, that’s more than what other similar provinces are spending. British Columbia and Manitoba will both spend about $5,300 per person on health care this year. Alberta plans to spend slightly less at $5,200 per person. Wait times for a knee replacement are lower in these other provinces despite spending less per person than Saskatchewan.

The reality is that spending more money doesn’t mean better results. It’s about how the money gets spent that matters. Administration costs are one area where the provincial government needs to improve. As a proportion of total expenses, the Saskatchewan government spends more than double what Alberta does on administration. The cost of the average hospital stay in Saskatchewan is $1,000 more than the Canadian average.

Instead of pumping more money into a system with problems, the government needs to focus on why the money it is currently spending, which is at an all-time high, isn’t being used efficiently.

It didn’t always used to be this way. In 2015, Saskatchewan had the lowest wait times in the country. Experts at the Fraser Institute attributed this success to the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative. The SSI is a program where the government contracts certain surgeries to private clinics – paid for by the taxpayer – to free up resources in the government system.

To improve wait times today, Saskatchewan again needs to innovate and look at what other countries are doing right to solve our backlog.

The governments of New Zealand, Australia, The Netherlands, Norway and Germany all have universal health-care systems that perform better than those in Canada while spending similar or less tax dollars, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund.

The Dutch system offers a great example for reform. The Netherlands has lower wait times for knee replacements than all the provinces mentioned, while spending less. It works by requiring all citizens to purchase a base level of insurance. This insurance is funded both from the government and through premiums. Dutch citizens can then take this insurance and shop around for the best doctor or hospital, creating healthy competition between health-care providers. In the same report cited above, the Netherlands scored second highest in the rankings, while Canada scored second last.

The Saskatchewan government could also learn from the European Union’s Cross Border Directive. It’s a policy that allows patients to travel from one EU country to another, pay for surgery, then be reimbursed for up to what it would have cost to get the procedure done at home. Research by the think tank SecondStreet.org shows this policy is cost-neutral for taxpayers, and it helps everyone get the care they need more quickly. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is considering this. Saskatchewan should follow suit.

More money isn’t the answer. Saskatchewan needs to reform its health-care system, without wasting anymore tax dollars.