Preservation with ransom money

If we were to analyze and compare the recent sponsorship scandal to the Canadian Government's handling of the ongoing health care crisis we would find some striking similarities.
In the former case the government has allocated annually billions of dollars (the sponsorship is only the tip of this iceberg) to support their strategy of how to retain Quebec in confederation, while in the case of preserving health care they have budgeted over 40 billion over the next 10 years also in their ongoing attempt to preserve the 5 pillars of our health care delivery system.
It would also appear that our senior government seems to be using this "ransom money " to treat symptoms rather than causes of these two national crisis problems.
Unless they make this shift in their strategy, they will not only continue to empty the public coffers but in the end could even loose both these battles.