Re: do you have a plan for your eighties?
- From: Kurt Ullman <kurtullman@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:01:56 -0400
In article <1192320736.993497.5780@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Bill Penrose <penrose@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 13, 3:35 pm, Kurt Ullman <kurtull...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Given the waiting lists in Canada, that sounds about right.
Hazards of socialized medicine:
September X, 2007: DB's father-in-law, 92, of Hamilton, Ontario is
provisionally diagnosed with 'wet' macular degeneration by an
optometrist
X + 4 days - Opthalmologist confirms diagnosis of wet MD, and arranges
for photodynamic therapy within the week
X + 7 - celebrates 70th anniversary
X + 9 days - Photodynamic therapy administered as outpatient
X + 11 days - Avastin therapy administered Dr's office (1)
X + 17 days - eyesight noticeably improved (given the state of the
art, it will likely not improve further, but probably won't get
worse)
Total cost $250.00 for the Avastin which, though proven effective, is
not yet an 'approved' treatment in the US or Canada
Meanwhile,
X + 2 - DB's mother-in-law, 90, admitted to hospital with shortness of
breath; four hours later suffers heart attack, conventional/TPA
therapy administered immediately
X + 5 - discharged from hospital with no apparent after-effects in
time to attend 70th anniversary party
Total cost $0.
The 'hazard' here, of course, is 'why is the government spending this
kind of money on two people in their 90's', when they could be having
a war, or building a bridge to an uninhabited island'.
Total cost is nowhere near $0.00, but you can pretend if you
want to. Also, on the DB's m-i-l, stayed tuned on that one. Canada, in a
string of studies from mid-90s on has consistently seen higher levels of
angina, more disability, and lower standardized quality of life scores
than the US.
d to the question about government vs. private insurance... Two excellent
economists who also happen to be good friends, June and Dave O'Neill of
Baruch College in New York, have produced an important new study
comparing health care in the U.S. and Canada.
They use data from a massive Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health and find
that the added health spending in the U.S. actually creates a system
that is fairer to the poor and excels at granting broad access to basic
care.
The study, presented at a National Bureau of Economic Research
conference, is only available to purchase, but here's a news article
from the National Post in Canada with a report. Among the findings:
? Americans have more chronic illnesses than Canadians, but we are
more likely to receive treatment. Canadians have a higher incidence of
untreated illnesses like emphysema, hypertension, diabetes, and heart
disease.
?
And she should be glad she did not get breast or cervical cancer
since it probably wouldn't have been caught.
? Americans are more likely to receive preventive services. For
example, the number of middle-aged Canadian women who have never had a
mammogram is nearly double that of the U.S. And the number of Canadian
women who never have had a pap test for cervical cancer is triple the
U.S. figure.
?
? And regarding infant mortality, the U.S. has more teenage mothers
and more low birth weight babies. When controlling for birth weight, the
two countries' infant mortality rates are virtually the same.
And of course people forget that the Canadian Supreme Court in 2005
said that waiting lines seen in Ottawa's health care plan were
essentially unconstitutional denial of service. From the CBC's account
"The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday that the Quebec
government cannot prevent people from paying for private insurance for
health-care procedures covered under medicare.
In a 4-3 decision, the panel of seven justices said banning private
insurance for a list of services ranging from MRI tests to cataract
surgery was unconstitutional under the Quebec Charter of Rights,
***given that the public system has failed to guarantee patients access
to those services in a timely way. "*** (emphasis mine)
Also, the studies from the Fraser Institute have found that how well
you are treated varies greatly from one area to the next, so there is no
homogeniety in treatment in Canada, either. In fact it took you (as an
average across the 12 specialities surveyed) almost twice as long to get
treated in New Brunswick as it did in Ontario.
"Among the provinces, Ontario achieved the shortest
total wait in 2006, 14.9 weeks, with Alberta (16.3
weeks), and Manitoba (18.0 weeks) next shortest. New
Brunswick exhibited the longest total wait, 31.9
weeks; the next longest waits were found in Saskatche-
wan (28.5 weeks) and Prince Edward Island (25.8
weeks)."
BTW: Did I mention that generics are underutilized and more
expensive in Canada as
opposed to the US?
.
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