Re: Words you'll never hear in the Canadian health care system

I for one would rather pay taxes and get something positive for it,
than the way it is now, paying taxes to get crap like the trillion-
dollar Iraq war, which gives us nothing but death.

On Jul 23, 9:33 am, "DGDevin" <dgde...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Bob Mann wrote:
There are unusual horror stories in every system no matter how good it
might be. The fact that they get wide spread publication is reasonable
proof that they are unusual.

Granted, high-profile cases are not typical.  But you don't have to look
very far to find lots of less flamboyant examples.  I can think of a couple
of folks I know in Canada who had to do things like schedule surgery in the
middle of the night via a faked "emergency" (with the full participation of
the hospital) because it was the only way to get an operating theatre
without waiting even more months, or who had to lie on a gurney in the ER
for a couple of days waiting for a bed to open up in a hospital that had
been forced to close many beds because of funding shortages.  Presumably the
Supreme Court of Canada didn't have too much trouble when went they looking
for cracks in the Canadian health care system, otherwise they wouldn't have
ruled that life-threatening delays had become widespread.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/09/international/americas/09cnd-canada...

Canada's Supreme Court Chips Away at National Health
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: June 9, 2005

TORONTO, June 9 - The Canadian Supreme Court struck down a Quebec law
banning private medical insurance today, dealing an acute blow to the
publicly financed national health care system.

The court stopped short of striking down the constitutionality of the
country's vaunted nationwide coverage, but legal experts said the ruling
would open the door to a wave of lawsuits challenging the health care system
in other provinces.

The system, providing Canadians with free doctor's services that are paid
for by taxes, has generally been supported by the public, and is broadly
identified with the Canadian national character.

But in recent years, patients have been forced to wait longer for diagnostic
tests and elective surgery, while the wealthy and well connected either seek
care in the United States or use influence to jump ahead on waiting lists..

The court ruled that the waiting lists had become so long that they violated
patients' "liberty, safety and security" under the Quebec charter, which
covers about one-quarter of Canada's population.

"The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public health care
system are widespread and that in some serious cases, patients die as a
result of waiting lists for public health care," the Supreme Court ruled.
"In sum, the prohibition on obtaining private health insurance is not
constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable
services."

[snip]

Ambulances are not part of the health system. They are either private
or operated by the local governmant, not the provincial one which
oversees the medical system.

The biggest problem for Canadians is that there is a shortage of
specialists such as surgeons. This is largely because they get lured
away by the big bucks to the south where many stay for the money, all
the while bemoaning how they have become paper pushers and bureaucrats
themselves rather than being free to practise medicine because of
insurance red tape.

The same thing happened when Britain instituted a national health plan, with
doctors fleeing to places like Canada and the U.S.  But aside from that
there are shortages of high-tech hardware like MRI machines, and as I
mentioned earlier, hospitals have closed beds because the funding to keep
them open (including providing nursing) isn't there.  It all comes down to
how much you want to pay in taxes; if you're happy paying fifty to seventy
percent of your income in taxes then you can have universal health care and
universal college and so on like they do in Denmark.  Americans generally go
ballistic at the thought of such tax rates.

Nobody should have to stand at the back of any line. Least not because
they can't afford insurance.
You do need someone to pur you that coffee, pump your gas, deliver
your paper and sell you your instruments?
I doubt too many of those people get insurance. You would consign
them to death because they have low paying, no benefit jobs?
Some people just haven't progressed past the Dickensian era, eh Mr
Scrooge?

My medical card is on me at all times, it makes sense.

It is insane that one in six Americans have no health insurance, and
millions more are seriously under-insured.  More than 60% of personal
bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to medical expenses; companies move jobs
overseas where they aren't saddled with employee health plan costs; a tenth
of what insured Americans pay in health premiums is shifted by the industry
to cover their costs of treating uninsured patients, and so on.  It's an
intolerable situation.  That isn't to say copying the Canadian system is the
answer, but something has to be done to provide coverage and lessen the
waste inherent in the U.S. system (where the insurance companies absorb
twice as much for administrative overhead as health administration does in
Canada).  Naturally some Americans (who have insurance) scream in outrage at
the idea of the govt. providing coverage--so long as they're in the lifeboat
they don't care how many people are thrashing around in the water.  As you
say, some people do sound like pre-repentance Scrooge.

.

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