Posted on 10/26/2003 10:47:35 AM PST by UnklGene
Losing our doctors, risking our health
National Post
Saturday, October 25, 2003
More and more, Canadians are finding, the doctor is out. Since 1993, the number of physicians in Canada has declined 5%, while the general population has risen nearly 13%.
At 2.1 doctors per 1,000 residents, as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reported last week, Canada has one-third fewer doctors per capita than the average among industrialized countries -- and only slightly more than half as many as France, Germany and the United States. In our largest metropolitan areas, this has led to so many doctors capping their patient lists that finding a family practitioner in one's own neighbourhood can be next to impossible. And in many of our smallest centres, there are no doctors at all.
The principal cause of this shortfall is easy to discern. In the early 1990s, federal and provincial health ministers sought to reduce the number of students admitted to medical schools, encouraged older doctors to retire early and limited the number of foreign-trained docs entering the country. The theory was that fewer physicians would result in lower medicare billings and fewer hospital admissions, thus producing savings to public treasuries -- as though doctors control who gets sick and how many seek treatment.
Then there is the exodus of doctors to the United States. Upwards of 300 Canadian doctors move southward each year. Some go for the higher pay and lower taxes. But many doctors are also migrating out of frustration with the inability to practise up-to-date medicine in Canada. In earlier reports, in fact, the OECD revealed that Canada ranks among the worst-developed nations for access to high-tech diagnostic and treatment equipment. Hungary has more MRIs, the Czech Republic more CAT scanners. Only a handful of OECD members have fewer lithotripters that use shockwaves to break up kidney stones. As a result, we have far too many risky kidney operations as a substitute.
And as the Fraser Institute pointed out again this week, waiting lists grow longer each year. Nearly 900,000 Canadians are currently waiting for diagnosis or treatment for what ails them. Waits lengthened in 2003 to an average of 17.7 weeks nationally for all procedures, up from 16.5 weeks the year before. More troubling still, Fraser found that specialists now believe "over 90% of waiting times are ... beyond clinically reasonable times." Hundreds die annually waiting for treatment that would come much faster in other nations; thousands more live with severe pain or disability.
The problem, contrary to popular wisdom, is not insufficient tax dollars in the system: Canadian public health care spending has actually risen by 35% in inflation-adjusted, per-capita terms since 1993. Some of this money went to buy new diagnostic machines and to hire new specialist doctors. Most, though, went to higher wages for unionized health care workers. And any additional public money will likely go in the same direction. Because of the monolithic structure of our single-payer medicare system, health care workers can hold it hostage. Politicians, who cannot bear the wrath of voters over hospital strikes, will always capitulate.
We are not knocking the nurses, technicians, aids and orderlies who change our bandages and refresh our linens: The only reason Canada's health system has continued for so long to produce acceptable health outcomes, such as high recovery rates and longevity, is the hard work and innovation of these caregivers. But a way has to be found to infuse the system with more money for new equipment and more doctors.
Governments have proven themselves hopeless at getting the money to where it will do the most good, so the task should be left to the rest of us. By freeing patients to buy extra care, or faster care, our health system will receive the market signals so vital to determining the balance between supply and demand. Private spending will also increase the amount of money in the system as a whole, thus permitting governments to redirect the amount they spend to the needy patients who need it most.
Until Ottawa and the provinces permit private spending on primary health care, new monies will be directed away from new doctors and badly needed technological upgrades, and Canadians won't receive the world-class level of health care they deserve.
Makes sense. In Canada, you don't pay for health care because you don't get health care. Eh?
Makes sense to me. If you can't see or find a doc, you must not be sick. (/sarcasm)
Of *course* it takes useless bureaucrats to turn medical care into some commodity whose use can be predicted and something that can be rationed without regard to people's lives. I bet they also have a certain set percentage of unnecessary deaths that they're willing to accept -- in order to stay on budget.
And as the Fraser Institute pointed out again this week, waiting lists grow longer each year. Nearly 900,000 Canadians are currently waiting for diagnosis or treatment for what ails them. Waits lengthened in 2003 to an average of 17.7 weeks nationally for all procedures, up from 16.5 weeks the year before. More troubling still, Fraser found that specialists now believe "over 90% of waiting times are ... beyond clinically reasonable times." Hundreds die annually waiting for treatment that would come much faster in other nations; thousands more live with severe pain or disability.
Hillarycare -- as envisioned by Hitlery itself -- would have been even worse than this, given our larger and more diverse population.
Governments have proven themselves hopeless at getting the money to where it will do the most good, so the task should be left to the rest of us. By freeing patients to buy extra care, or faster care, our health system will receive the market signals so vital to determining the balance between supply and demand. Private spending will also increase the amount of money in the system as a whole, thus permitting governments to redirect the amount they spend to the needy patients who need it most.
But as the Sinkmaster himself once told a cheering crowd in upstate NY, regarding proposed GOP tax cuts: "What if we give you back YOUR OWN MONEY AND YOU SPEND IT WRONG?" We can't have people making decisions for themselves, now can we?!
That's the whole socialist/democRat argument in a nutshell -- that we are too stupid, selfish, short-sighted, whatever, to manage our own money and our own lives, and the *only* way we can survive in this big bad world is to hand over all control (and money) to the oh so wise politicians.
Whether they deserve world-class care is highly debatable.
Too many Canadians consider "free" nationalized healthcare to be their national treasure, and wave it in our faces when there are headlines about uninsured or underinsured patients, medical inflation, etc.
They are stewing in their own juices (you make your bed and you lie in it, or in this case wait forever to lie in it), and until they figure out that it's the lockstep liberals who have controlled the country for the past 20 years or so who have ruined the healthcare system for everyone, it's hard to have a lot of sympathy.
And you are absolutely right that the rats would make our system far, far worse that the rapidly declining Canadian mess.
That's the whole attractiveness of Socialism to the intelligencia (alias the chattering class): they visualize themselves as the "planners" of the planned economy
Yep. They claim to be *sooo* much smarter and more caring than the rest of us -- but the reality is that they just need to think so highly of themselves.
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