Re: Add Visa pages to US passport

James Robinson <wascana@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Yet government agencies seem to manage the health care systems in other
countries just fine.

Not sure I buy that assumption. I am very familiar with the healthcare system in
the UK and I can assure you it's hardly the model of government efficiency. In
fact, quite the opposite.

Most advocates of government run healthcare point to Canada as the perfect
model. Consider the following:

A July 2004 poll conducted for the Canadian Medical Association (search) found
that 40 percent of Canadians now grade their health care system as a C or worse.

?Year over year, Canadians have identified that their confidence in their
health-care system is eroding,? said former CMA president Sunil Patel.

The reason is simple and the problem is structural.

In theory, Canadians enjoy an almost ideal system ? the government pays for all
necessary health care, which is delivered by private practice physicians and
independent hospitals. The day-to-day reality is starkly different. When
Canadians need care, they face a series of waits: one for access to a primary
care doctor, another for access to scarce diagnostic equipment, and another for
the necessary procedure.

Between 1993 and 2003, the median waiting time from referral by a general
practitioner to treatment increased by 90 percent, from 9.3 weeks to 17.7 weeks,
according to an annual survey of physicians by the Vancouver-based Fraser
Institute. For cancer patients, the waiting time for medical oncology more than
doubled from 2.5 weeks to 6.1 weeks, and the waiting time for radiation oncology
increased from 5.3 weeks to 8.1 weeks.

That?s the experience of 58-year-old Don Cernivz, who noticed blood in his urine
in fall of 2003. He waited three weeks for his first diagnostic test and then
another month for an MRI (search). Actual treatment for his cancer of the pelvis
didn?t commence until May of the following year.

?The waiting time is ridiculous at the hospital,? his daughter complained to the
Calgary Herald. ?He is in pain.?

The waits for care are not aberrations, but the logical result of the incentives
of a government-supported system. To the government, health care costs are
merely the checks it must write. To the patients like Cernivz, however, costs
are broader, including the value of lost or diminished work while waiting for
care and the diminished quality of life, while waiting in pain.

Government planners control monetary costs by shifting non-monetary costs on to
patients. The system then prohibits Canadians from avoiding those non-monetary
costs by paying out of pocket for their care, unless they leave the country.

That?s exactly what former champion figure skater Audrey Williams did. After
waiting two years for a hip replacement in Vancouver, B.C., she traveled to
Washington State and paid $25,000 to stop the pain.

?I couldn?t wait any longer,? the 71-year-old Williams told the National Post.
She could barely walk, wasn?t getting enough sleep, and pain pills had upset her
stomach. ?I wanted a life.?

Canadians are finding they now have to wait for primary care, not just advanced
procedures.

One Canadian tells of a 5-year wait to see his wife?s general practitioner.
Nearly 4 in 10 Canadians reported waiting longer than they thought reasonable
for access to a family physician in a poll conducted for the CMA in the spring
of 2004.

"At the moment," writes CMA president Dr. Albert Schumacher, "millions of
Canadians would love to find just one family physician, let alone choose from
among several."

Nearly half of doctors and nurses polled in July reported that their patient?s
conditions had worsened while waiting for care.

And the waits only promise to get longer, as a stagnating pool of physicians
struggles to serve an aging population that isn?t allowed to pay privately for
care. That?s the reality of a health care system dominated by the government,
and the reality Americans need to be wary of when considering options for health
care reform.
.

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