Like the posse relentlessly pursuing the outlaws in the 1969 western movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the notion of greater private sector involvement in health care is closing in on those reviewing the future of medicare in this country. But while Butch and Harry were reluctant to admit that an end to their outlaw days was inevitable, the various politicians and commissions studying the future of public health care should welcome competition and for-profit health care as crucial to saving Canada's public health care system.

Evidence of the inescapable necessity of private sector involvement is as close as today's National Post exclusive story on a proposal for a private chain of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanning clinics. PET scans are considered the most modern and useful weapons in early detection of certain cancers as well as a variety of other ailments such as heart disease and Alzheimer's. And yet with a $3-million price tag and six-figure annual maintenance costs, PET scanners have so far been out of the range of most provinces' health care budgets; there are only two available for public use in the country. To rectify this situation, a group of private investors plans to offer PET scans in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary for a fee of $2,500.

Despite tiresome complaints that having the private sector compete with the public sector in health care is contrary to the interests of Canadians, this new proposal offers only positive possibilities. If the existence of private PET facilities spurs the public system to adopt this new technology sooner than it otherwise would have, then the private clinics have benefitted all Canadians. If, on the other hand, the public systems choose not to buy more PET scanners, then the private clinics will be providing a service that would otherwise have been unavailable.

The obvious benefits of competition and greater private sector involvement in health care have led to greater public acceptance of the concept. Last week's Ekos Research poll showed that support among middle-class Canadians for paying a fee to receive faster health care jumped from 29% to 38% between 1995 and 2001. Across all income brackets, support stood at 36%. And as the public comes to accept the inevitability of private health care, politicians -- including Roy Romanow, the former Saskatchewan premier now heading a national commission on health care -- must surely follow.