[wiseone]

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.

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

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.

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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.

[alloysteel]

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.

[Polybius]

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?

[Dan Evans]

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.

[Paulus Invictus]

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.

[NYC GOP Chick]

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.

[semiarticulate]

"Some go for the higher pay and lower taxes."

I hope Canada NEVER institutes national lawyer care!

[D-fendr]

Thanks for the post.

Do you, or anyone else, have a similar article on Canadian prescription drugs?

[sitetest]

"Canadians won't receive the world-class level of health care they deserve."

It appears that Canadians are already receiving the health care they deserve.

[LibertarianLiz]

Governments have proven themselves hopeless at getting the money to where it will do the most good,(no s**t Sherlock) 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.

Isn't that called (gasp!) capitalism?

One of my very favorite Ann Coulter quotes goes something like this: "I wish I could be a liberal, so that I could be constantly surprised by the obvious." I believe this article proves the point, in terms of health care. However, probably won't stop us from being pushed over the cliff of socialized medicine by the likes of Hillary and her gang.