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Losing our doctors, risking our health -
( Woe, Canada )
National Post ^
| October 25, 2003
Posted on 10/26/2003 10:47:35 AM PST by UnklGene
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1
posted on
10/26/2003 10:47:35 AM PST
by
UnklGene
To: UnklGene
This is whats wrong with the canadian system?
beaurocrats rule!
St. Joseph's Health Centre laid off 62 front-line health-care workers yesterday to help cover an $8-million deficit, on the heels of three of the hospital's vice-presidents getting raises totalling $500,000
Health-care staffers laid off after VPs get raises
By KEVIN CONNOR, TORONTO SUN
Last week, 200 environmental assistants at St. Michael's Hospital received layoff notices.
2
posted on
10/26/2003 10:52:09 AM PST
by
wiseone
To: UnklGene
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.
Let's see, reducing the supply while the demand increases is supposed to cut costs? What kind of morons do they have in charge up there? No wonder the physicians are bailing out.
To: UnklGene
Being a doctor, contrary to popular belief, is not a purely altruistic calling. Doctors have bills to pay, and in the past, have enjoyed a certain prestige in the community. This has been expressed by their friends and neighbors, by the standard of living accorded to them. Sure, physicians and medical professionals work long hours, sometimes with relatively little recompense for the overtime.
There is danger of burnout if the medical specialists see as futile all the time they put in, and the judgment they exercise. Early retirement, or quitting the community and relocating elsewhere, where their skills and expertise are better appreciated, is often the choice made. Places all over the world clamor for medical services, and those who place their medical professionals in a position of honor, rewarding them for their efforts, will attract them away from places that hold doctors in low regard.
To: UnklGene
The theory was that fewer physicians would result in lower medicare billings and fewer hospital admission..... Makes sense. In Canada, you don't pay for health care because you don't get health care. Eh?
5
posted on
10/26/2003 11:14:47 AM PST
by
Polybius
To: UnklGene
This can't be right. Michael Moore told me the Canadian health care system was far superior to the U.S. It must be a mistake.
6
posted on
10/26/2003 11:18:02 AM PST
by
Dan Evans
To: UnklGene
Oh but keep in mind, the Candadian system of medical care is precisely what Hitlery and the RATS want to establish here. When the RATS, and unfortunately the Pubbies, pass all the social/medical bills that they have on the table, including prescription drugs for the elderly, IMHO, we are well on the way to complete socialized medicine and the Republic is toast.
Comment #8 Removed by Moderator
Comment #9 Removed by Moderator
To: Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek
as though doctors control who gets sick and how many seek treatment Makes sense to me. If you can't see or find a doc, you must not be sick. (/sarcasm)
To: UnklGene
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.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.
11
posted on
10/26/2003 12:29:19 PM PST
by
NYC GOP Chick
(I once tried to think like a democRat, but I couldn't get my head that far up my a$$)
To: NYC GOP Chick
Canadians won't receive the world-class level of health care they deserve. 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.
To: UnklGene
"Some go for the higher pay and lower taxes."
I hope Canada NEVER institutes national lawyer care!
To: NYC GOP Chick
Post 11: excelent!!
And you are absolutely right that the rats would make our system far, far worse that the rapidly declining Canadian mess.
14
posted on
10/26/2003 2:20:34 PM PST
by
friendly
(Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.)
To: NYC GOP Chick
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. That's the whole attractiveness of Socialism to the intelligencia (alias the chattering class): they visualize themselves as the "planners" of the planned economy
15
posted on
10/26/2003 2:30:15 PM PST
by
SauronOfMordor
(Java/C++/Unix/Web Developer === (Finally employed again! Whoopie))
To: UnklGene; All
Thanks for the post.
Do you, or anyone else, have a similar article on Canadian prescription drugs?
16
posted on
10/26/2003 2:32:12 PM PST
by
D-fendr
To: D-fendr
17
posted on
10/26/2003 3:36:22 PM PST
by
Snowyman
To: litany_of_lies
All true -- and excellent points.
18
posted on
10/26/2003 4:01:40 PM PST
by
NYC GOP Chick
(I once tried to think like a democRat, but I couldn't get my head that far up my a$$)
To: friendly
Thanks. :) Actually what the 'rats want to do is impose their template for socialism on our health care system and drag it down. They seem to not understand that they have been driving the best and brightest out of and away from medicine with their heavy-handed b.s.
19
posted on
10/26/2003 4:02:53 PM PST
by
NYC GOP Chick
(I once tried to think like a democRat, but I couldn't get my head that far up my a$$)
To: SauronOfMordor
That's the whole attractiveness of Socialism to the intelligencia (alias the chattering class): they visualize themselves as the "planners" of the planned economyYep. They claim to be *sooo* much smarter and more caring than the rest of us -- but the reality is that they just need to think so highly of themselves.
20
posted on
10/26/2003 4:05:18 PM PST
by
NYC GOP Chick
(I once tried to think like a democRat, but I couldn't get my head that far up my a$$)
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