The Waiting Game

WSJ ^ | August 29, 2006 | WSJ

[Brilliant]

Last week Ottawa-based Decima Research released results of a poll designed to answer the ultimate question in Canada: "How many wait too long for health care?" The firm says its survey of 3,070 Canadians "reveals that more than one in three Canadian households has tried and failed to get timely access to at least one health service within the last three months."

Nearly half (46%) of those waiting to see a specialist said they experienced an "unreasonable" wait time, as did 30% of those waiting to confirm a diagnosis. Of those who sought emergency hospital treatment, 44% said their wait was too long. According to Decima CEO Bruce Anderson, "In the case of some services, the number of people satisfied with the speed of service is virtually equaled by the number of people who are dissatisfied."

The Vancouver-based Fraser Institute's "Waiting Your Turn" annual report has documented Canada's waiting-time crisis in health care for 15 years. In 2005 it found "total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces, was 17.7 weeks."

At issue here is whether it is better to ration a scarce good using prices, as a free-market system would do, or using time, as is inevitably the case with nationally financed systems...

[Brilliant]

There is no doubt that if government hands out healthcare "for free," then you will have people wasting your available healthcare resources, but it is also a fact that if you don't have enough doctors, then you have long waiting lines no matter what system you have.

[RightCanuck]

Thank you for putting free in quotes; ie "free".
Candian "healthcare" is not free and is nowhere near as good as US services. Doctors are leaving the country, wait times continue to be far to long, and you have to really fight sometimes to get expensive treatments.

I've estimated that it costs me, in both income taxes and supplementary private insurance, about $3,500 per year for my "free" healthcare here in Canuckistan. The Fraser Institute or somebody like them has probably done a study on this with accurate numbers for the general population.

[chaosagent]

Bookmarked

[CholeraJoe]

At issue here is whether it is better to ration a scarce good using prices, as a free-market system would do, or using time, as is inevitably the case with nationally financed systems...

Is this English...or Babelfish translated from Pashtun?