Posted on 11/22/2005 2:19:02 PM PST by proud_yank
Canadians are losing faith in the health care system and are open to the possibility of private initiatives if their access to quick and effective treatment does not improve, according to a new survey.
"If Canadians are not reassured that timely access is eventually going to happen, their support for this private option is likely to increase," said Marie Larose, vice-president of POLLARA Research, which conducted the 2005 Health Care in Canada Survey. "If politicians are not able to demonstrate that there are solutions, people are more and more going to turn to other answers."
Fifty per cent of respondents to the POLLARA survey indicated their confidence in the public health care system is falling, the number rising even higher -- to 54% -- among women.
The results are based on a nationwide survey of 1,200 Canadians, as well as doctors, nurses, pharmacists and 201 health administrators across the country.
The survey was conducted between Aug. 17 and Sept. 2, 2005, and is considered accurate within plus or minus 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The poll showed only 5% of respondents are becoming more confident in public health care.
Declining faith in the system is seen across the country, from 41% of Atlantic Canadians saying they are less confident to 58% of respondents in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Ms. Larose said the eroding levels of faith in public treatment coincide with growing awareness of private options, heightened by the recent Supreme Court decision that opened up a potential new role for private service providers.
"We've been conducting the study since 1998, and gradually we've seen that more and more Canadians are looking for new ways of meeting the challenges facing the health care system," she said.
But what that means for the future support of private health care is not clear, she said, as Canadians remain conflicted about the role alternative service providers should play and what impact they would have.
Forty-five percent of the public, 49% of nurses and 74% of physicians support the idea that Canadians should be allowed to pay out of pocket to purchase quicker access to health services funded under the public system.
But most respondents believe private health care would have both good and bad effects.
A majority of Canadians believe it would create a two-tier system (68%), lead to a shortage of physicians in the public system (61%) and increase costs (58%), but more Canadians also believe it would result in shorter wait times (68%) and improve the quality of their treatment (60%).
"It's going to be difficult to have a debate about private health care because Canadians are very divided," Ms. Larose said. "They see the positives and they see negatives. They're willing to support it, but the basic principle that everyone has to have access is still there."
Mike Villene, a senior nurse consultant with the Canadian Nurses Association, which partnered in the survey, said the results demonstrate a "paradox of concern" about the current health care model. People are generally happy with their treatment when they have experienced a medical emergency, he said, but are worried about the impact of wait times on their access to care in general.
A majority of respondents to the survey believe wait times for elective surgery have become longer in the past two years -- 66% of the public, 64% of nurses and 58% of physicians.
This could translate into growing support for alternative options, he said.
"People will only put up with things for so long before they go and find another way," Mr. Villene said. "Our sense is that people express an openness to pay for some of those aspects of care that are in the public system when they can't get the public system to respond."
Mr. Villene was intrigued by the gender disparity in the survey. Women were less inclined than men to support paying out of pocket for health care services -- 40% of women as opposed to 49% of men.
"My hunch is those are women who take their children to the hospital. They have very practical experience using the system all the time," he said. "It's fine to be very theoretical when you're a healthy, wealthy male whose willing to pay for a heart transplant they might need 20 years from now, [but more difficult] when you're a mom with kids hanging off your arm."
The survey also showed that physicians, nurses and pharmacists are more likely than the general public to support private initiatives.
Seventy-three percent of doctors and 72% of pharmacists said Canadians should be allowed to pay out of pocket for health services currently funded under the public system, compared with 45% of the public.
"Those differences are probably at least in part due to the frustration of trying to provide appropriate care to patients by the people working in the system," said Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai, a cardiologist and president of the Canadian Medical Association.
Desperation is leading both patients and health care providers to look at all possible solutions, said Dr. Collins-Nakai, and the debate over private versus public health care can no longer focus on the choice between one or the other.
"We have to start talking about what will be in the public system and what will be outside," she said. "I think there's more realism among the public in terms of gradual change."
Canadians are starting to learn the errors of our ways with regards to healthcare. Endless lineups and shoddy treatment are even making the most die-hard proponents of universal healthcare in Canada start to realise that the system simply does not work.
Yeah? Well that's too bad. Getting rid of socialized medicine up there will put a bunch of libs out of work - and that's not going to happen.
Make no compunctions about it: republics should "follow the will of the people" unless the people are being idiots and not voting left wing. Then the decision must be made for them.
So that's too bad for the Canadians. They sold their freedom for nothing and now they're not getting it back.
It's okay though - once we socialize medicine down here, the poorest Canadians aren't going to have any place to go to escape social medicine.
So to all our Canadian neighbors: bend over and drop your pants, this might pinch a bit...
No, you're absolutely correct, we will never be free of socialised medicine, but at least there is now the option for private healthcare in the country. We do have that now, it's just a matter of whether there will be private health insurance allowed.
Socialism is like any common VD. Easy as heck to contract, may even look somewhat appealing, but next to impossible to get rid of!
Socialist policies, and politicians who try to fix the world through more government should be avoided like the plague.
They HAVE a two-tiered system -- and both tiers suck. One tier is the people who get medical care after appalling long delays, during which time their quality of life and economic productivity are severely curtailed. The other tier is all the people who die during, or because of their appallingly long wait for medical care.
It's not clear to me how it would be worse to have two tiers consisting of one tier of people who get good prompt medical care, and another tier who die because they can't afford medical care. At least that way, SOME people are in a good tier.
Actually, its a 3-tiered system. The third tier, the ones with the money, come to the US for their health care.
Yes, I supposed that's true. Though not sure the Canadian sysem should get credit for that tier.
I bet the government elites, all the "really important" people, don't wait in any lines for care....just all the "little people' who pay huge tax burdens for this failed system...
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