Manitoba government now threatens to fine clinic over private MRI (Canada)

Canada ^ | Nov. 25, 2005 | Steve Lambert

[FairOpinion]

WINNIPEG (CP) - A showdown over private health care is looming in Manitoba, where the NDP government is threatening to impose sanctions against the Maples Surgical Centre over its plans for a private magnetic resonance imaging machine.

Health Minister Tim Sale, who said Tuesday he would wait for federal direction on the issue, changed his mind Wednesday and said the clinic will contravene the Canada Health Act if it charges patients for medically necessary diagnostic scans.

"If it's medically necessary, then the provider cannot charge the patient," Sale said.

"It doesn't matter where it is, whether it's in a hospital, in a doctor's office, in a free-standing clinic or in a private lab."

Sale said the province is willing to enforce the Canada Health Act with fines of up to $5,000 and more serious sanctions for subsequent offences.

But the Maples centre, which is hoping to have the MRI up and running within two weeks, appears prepared to face any sanctions.

"We're going to offer MRIs to people who need MRIs," said Dr. Mark Godley, the centre's medical director.

"If the minister of health wishes to be heartless enough to sanction people who provide health care to people who need it, then that's certainly his prerogative.

"We'll provide care, and if it has to go to court, it will go to court."

Private MRIs are already operating in Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia.

Federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh wrote to the four provinces last spring, expressing concern that the private clinics allow people with money to get faster treatment.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell responded by saying Ottawa should not interfere in how provinces deliver health care.

The Maples clinic is awaiting approval from the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons for its MRI. The clinic plans to let people get the diagnostic service within 48 hours, for a fee of $695.

Manitoba government statistics suggest people wait an average of eight to 15 weeks for an MRI in the public system - that's after waiting weeks or months to see a specialist whose referral is needed for an MRI.

Godley said the Manitoba government should pay heed to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling last spring that said long waits for medical care in Quebec violate that province's charter of rights.

"The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that people are waiting an undue length of time and are suffering," Godley said.

Manitoba's opposition Conservatives say the government should not stand in the way of Godley's clinic.

"We support choice for patients," said Tory health critic Heather Stefanson.

Stefanson also disputes the government's assertion that private MRIs contravene the Canada Health Act.

She points to the federal government's most recent annual report on the act, which states that MRIs are only considered to be insured services under medicare when they are provided "in a hospital or a facility providing hospital care".

[FairOpinion]

You either get socialized medicine, with its wait time of years, or get nothing. They don't even want to allow private medicine.

People better pay attention, because this is exactly what Hillary wanted to have in the US.

[freedumb2003]

People better pay attention, because this is exactly what Hillary wanted to have in the US.

Many a rose-colored set of glasses will shatter before this fight is through.

I agree, we need to keep close track of this and trot it out every time some Leftist idiot starts shouting about the "right" to health care.

[mmercier]

>> expressing concern that the private clinics allow people with money to get faster treatment.

The solution is simple from this perspective, simply tax everyone except the sanctioned elite to penury.

Voila, equality for the peasants.

The Canadian elite just fly in to Kennedy for their treatment anyhow so nothing is lost.

[StormEye]

"Federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh wrote to the four provinces last spring, expressing concern that the private clinics allow people with money to get faster treatment."

Socialism! Hey, just take all the money away from EVERYONE! Then there will be no worries about anybody aquiring anything. No money, no jobs no industry, no ambition, no nothing. Let the government provide everything. Even the people's sexual needs. That's what government is supposed to be about. I heard someone from a NorthEastern state say that after getting very cheap home heating oil from Venezuela.

[Octar]

The difference between them and us (US) is that we can do anything we want to do unless it is prohibited.
They can do nothing unless it is permitted.

And who does the permitting?
A bunch of clowns whose minds have never been crossed by the notion of doing anything.

[TASMANIANRED]

?What is his beef.

If the people with money to affoard it pay and get quick service then the numbers of people waiting for the socialized version falls.

Waits get shorter, everybody wins.

[pointsal]

Nothing like a flexible socialist.

[hubbubhubbub]

Under Hillary care Dr. Godley would be in jail.

[muawiyah]

Plus, whether you die or not due to lack of medical attention, your doctor goes to prison for an indefinite period.

Ain't medical totalitarianism fun?

[TYVets]

Under Hillary Care Dr. Godley would be in jail.

Or a victim of Arkalcide.

[satchmodog9]

Medical Utopia alert.

[Uncle Jaque]

Our socialist Governor here in Maine is regulating the last remaining health insurer - anthem BC - into bankrupcy, having taxed and regulated all other insurers out of state and made it illeagal for a Maine business or individual to purchace health insurance out of state - even though right next door in NH premiums are as much as half as much as they are here.

They've come up with a fiasco called "DIRIGO" care, which is hemmoraging money and unable to take care of the less than 2000 citizens covered by it - now they are demanding that their monopoly Anthem subsidize it, but prohibiting them from passing the cost on to subscribers.
Anthem may well bail out too under this regulatory abuse, leaving a failed "Dirigo" and providers which are not getting paid by state Medicaid for up to 3 years - if ever - and facing bankrupcy as a result.

Maine has the highest percentage of citizens on Medicaid, the highest personal total taxes, and one of the lowest per capita incomes. So a lot of working Mainers can't afford to insure themselves or their families, or pay for care.

"Private" health care is being systematically persecuted out of the State of Maine.

What's next is obvious; "single payer" health care, a-la Canada and Cuba, where the State controlls all medical practice and access to it.

And by the way that the ME State government currently runs the Dept of Human Services and other agencies, putting incompetent hacks and cronies in charge, it promises to be horrendous.

If anyone in the NE New England area has personal experience of what it's like for the "commoners" under socialized "medicine" and would be willing to be interviewed via phone or in studio for a Portland ME based radio talk show on the subject (so that Mainers will know what we can look forward to in the near future) please drop me a P-mail so we can set it up.

[SheLion]

Governor says he'll support Dirigo savings bill

November 24, 2005

AUGUSTA, Maine --A dispute over a key funding source for the Dirigo Health program edged closer to the legislative arena as Gov. John Baldacci said he will support a bill to prevent insurers from passing on fees they must pay to ratepayers.

The Dirigo program, designed to extend health coverage to thousands of uninsured and underinsured Mainers, has been a priority program for the Democratic governor and stands to be a major issue in the 2006 gubernatorial election.

The program, authorized by the Legislature in 2003, draws funding from savings achieved through voluntary spending caps by hospitals and other cost-control efforts. Insurers that reap benefits from those savings are required to turn them over to Dirigo Health.

Earlier this week, the Dirigo board voted to collect from insurance companies nearly $44 million in assessments resulting from health savings. Some of the state's insurers have said they will increase premiums to make up for the assessments they must pay.

That has prompted sharp criticism from Baldacci, and now promises of legislation which the governor says he will support.

Sen. John Martin's bill would prevent insurers from increasing premiums to make up for the cost of Dirigo assessments. Martin, D-Eagle Lake, said the understanding all along between the state and health insurers was that Dirigo costs would not be passed along to policy holders.

Baldacci said the state went through a thorough process to determine the amount of savings in the health care system that can be attributed to Dirigo.

"The intent was that insurance companies would use the money they had saved because of Dirigo to support the program moving forward. If, in fact, that's not followed, I'll support legislation that's already introduced that will make sure they cannot pass that on in terms of a premium increase to premium payers," Baldacci said.

Spokesman Mark Ishkanian of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, which has partnered with the state to provide the DirigoChoice product to 8,500 Maine residents, said news of Baldacci's position "is disconcerting to us."

Katherine Pelletreau, executive director for the Maine Association of Health Plans, which represents Anthem, Aetna , Cigna and Harvard Pilgrim, said insurers strive to reduce rates when possible to remain competitive.

Pelletreau said the insurers' position is that until there are savings in the marketplace, "they don't really exist."

Rep. Kevin Glynn, a Dirigo critic, believes the state is trying to recoup money from a smaller increase in costs, not a savings. The South Portland Republican said insurance companies have no choice but to pass along the cost because they never saved money in the first place.

------

Information from: Kennebec Journal, http://www.kjonline.com/ 

[FairOpinion]

Thanks, UJ for the info and to SL for the additional article.

I had no idea that right here in the US we have states that are getting very close to fully socialized medicine.

In E Europe, Soviet Union, Cuba "healthcare if free", which means that nobody is getting any, because there is no incentive to invest in modern technologies, they lacked even the most basic medical tests and treatments, so everyone equally has not care. You still pay the doctors and hospitals under the table, to get some care.

You can also look at the UK, where people literally wait for 2-3 YEARS for "elective" (necessary, but not urgent) surgeries, and many die while waiting. There was also a recent article, that they arestarting to ration hip and knee replacement, only thin people can get them, overweight people don't deserve medical care, they can just suffer, "it serves them right" -- says their fine socialist system.

[FairOpinion]

To clarify -- E. Europe and the Soviet Union had that kind of medical care, while they were socialist, not anymore.

[goldstategop]

The NDP is socialist. Interestingly, Manitoba and Saskatchewan used to have Conservative governments. The party disappeared in Manitoba due to a corruption scandal.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[SheLion]

I had no idea that right here in the US we have states that are getting very close to fully socialized medicine.

That's why I am so thankful for FRee Republic.  I, too, would never know half of what is going on in Maine if it weren't for others spreading the news.

Have to keep our eyes open every minute.  We sleep, we loose!

[taildragger]

Fair,

I got to hear a Union Apparatchik here on Detroit Radio saying the solution to GM's cost woes in Nationalized Health Care.

He is absolutely clueless, the game has changed.

Individual responsibility is the way to go forward and not cost and responsibility shifting to someone else.

Defined Benefit plans and full Medical and Dental bene's will be dinosaurs soon. 401k's and HSA's will rule the day.