Universal Health Care! Are Canadians Stupid?

geocities.com ^ | 2000 | Jack Stewart

[Alberta's Child]

Having lived in both countries, I think I can offer some interesting perspective on this issue.

Most of the comparisons between Canada and the U.S. are little more than academic exercises, and while the author of this article has generally done a pretty thorough analysis, there is still no point in trying to compare the two nations. First and foremost, the United States does not have a "health care system" -- this is a silly catch-phrase used by people looking to pursue an agenda one way or another ("The U.S. health care system is in crisis," "The U.S. health care system is the best in the world," etc.). In the U.S., health care encompasses a broad area of numerous inter-related sectors of the economy. Therefore, comparisons between "their system" and "our system" are pretty pointless.

Using life expectancy statistics to compare the quality of health care between countries is also misleading, since these statistics do not account for the impact that variations in infrastructure, personal health, and social pathologies such as drug abuse, alcoholism, etc. have on these statistics.

This article also neglects to mention the most important factor in the health care cost differential between the U.S. and Canada. Health care does not cost less in Canada because Canada has a single-payer system. You can implement a single-payer system in the U.S. tomorrow, and the savings (due to reduced "overhead," paperwork, etc.) would be negligible. Health care costs less in Canada because the single payer is a government office/agency that is immune from lawsuits by the patients that are treated in the system. This is precisely why any attempt to implement a single-payer system in the United States always includes an item that receives very little attention -- indemnification for the government against lawsuits.

This is something to think about the next time someone like Ted Kennedy or Hillary Clinton claims that patients should be allowed to sue their HMOs. These people are not consistent, because they do not believe that patients should be allowed to sue their HMOs if the HMO in question is the U.S. government.

[Andyman]

In the US, if you want to pay cash for a scan on one of the multitude of MRI machines here, your wait may be a few days. In Canada (where my in-laws live) you can do the same thing. . . for your dog or cat, but not your mother, son, wife, or any other human. See, that is moving ahead in the queue. Can't have that, can we? No, humans have to wait for MONTHS to get a scan, in many cases, too late to do anything about which the scan might reveal.

My brother recently needed a PET scan, and, after a week's wait, got one. He had to travel to a small city of about 90,000 people. How many PET machines do they have in Canada? TWO! And one of them needs repair!

[Alberta's Child]

As the above article points out, in a 1992 Gallup poll, the Canadians, who live right next to us, and speak the same language, and have lots of knowledge of our system, preferred their system to our system by 96% to 2%.

I don't dispute those numbers, but 1992 was 11 years ago. I'd be curious to see a reference to a 2003 Gallup poll.

[mitchbert]

the socialized system sucks, socialized anything sucks, that's why socialized countries are not leaders of the world.

No argument with that one bit. Still, our system for all its warts is far from the unmitigated disaster I see it described as so often, here and elsewhere. If we'd simply allow a parallel private system to coexist with the public one many of the problems could be reduced significantly. Of course, getting government out of the picture entirely would be much preferrable, but reality is reality and that isn't in the cards up here.

Personally, I'd be much happier with a full private system where I culd take responsibility for myself rather than being forced to deal with a fairly mediocre system for all.

[discostu]

I'm not saying it's an unmitigated disaster, those honors go to China, but the Canadian system needs a lot of help. Fully private is the way to go, we could do with some privatization in America.

[paul51]

where is DU????

HERE you go

[glock rocks]

Cattle Cookies!

What's the wait time to get a CT scan in Toronto?

I can get one here in the great basin this week.

Take your socialist drivel with you.

[brydic1]

1. Tort reform in the US to give us the same cost factors that the Canadian Health System has in that they have relative immunity to the many types of suits we have in the US.

2. Selling US drugs in foreign countries at the same price level charged in the US would drastically reduce the price for drugs to all. Foreign countries that pursue patent right infringement should be the subject of a total trade embargo. It is high time that the costs for advancements in drug therapy we in this country pay for are shared by any and all who use this therapy and the US drug companies should not be blackmailed into selling these drugs w/o adequate compensation for fear that they will have them copied w/o any compensation to those who developed the drugs. The US Govt should seriously pursue patent infringements when the foreign countries reproduce these drugs which are produced in the US with US capital and largely paid for by the US consumer. If these countries pursist in stealing our drug formulas, then take such measures as are necessary to stop it.

3. No US government subsidy for anyone but the severely indigent until and unless a citizen has first expended at least $500 to $1,000 for the calendar year.

These changes would greatly reduce the cost of medicine and medical treatment in the US.

[capt. norm]

"You "accidentally forgot" to mention the introductory paragraph to the news story you cited. I will be glad to reproduce it here: "Normally when you hear about bus trips between Maine and Canada related to health care, it's Mainers going north to buy prescription drugs." "

He DID post that part of it!

Did you get those prescription glasses in Canada?

[eleni121]

You really need to do your medical homework. This can help begin the process:

http://www.pacificresearch.org/press/opd/2003/opd_03-09-21sp.html

[spectre]

You think the Canadian Universal Health Care System could survive if we sent them all the ILLEGAL uninsured aliens who are pouring into our ER rooms, and being treated, every hour of every day? Hummm?

We should bus them all up there.

sw

[spectre]

"where is DU???"

Sharp turn to the LEFT..

sw

[MeekOneGOP]

[MeekOneGOP]

[SJSAMPLE]

We moved one of our Canadian employees down here when we transferred his department to Indianapolis. He's tells me how he "only" had to wait 6 MONTHS for an MRI on his shoulder.

There's a reason Detroiters refer to their currency as Canadian Pesos.

[The Old Hoosier]

Why a poll from 1992? I'll tell you why. That was back when their new system was still being implemented, wasn't it?

I wonder how they feel now that Canadians can't get a CT Scan without coming to the U.S.?

Now that Doctors are streaming out of Canada, causing such a shortage that the government has to fine them $5,000 for not working in ERs?

Now that you have to come to the U.S. to get most kinds of surgery unless you want to wait a few months to a year?

Now that many Canadian hospitals are on the verge of bankruptcy?

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=1926

[The Old Hoosier]

Worth a re-post:

I had an uncle who was allowed to be blind for the last six months of life because a simply operation to allow him to see was decided to be not a good use of health care dollars.

I had another uncle who was dying and there was no bed for him available at the hospital in Winnipeg. They did not diagnose him until it was too late.

Take your numbers, words of lies, and pray that we never have Canadian health care here.

[The Old Hoosier]

Worth posting here in full:

Can 7,700 Doctors Be Wrong About Health Care?

Posted Sep 26, 2003 by Charles W. Jarvis

Recently, a group representing some 7,700 physicians used the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) to champion Canadian-style socialized medicine for America.

Could so many supposedly smart people be completely wrong about good health care policy? Yes. In this case they are dangerously wrong.

A cursory analysis of Canada's health care system shows how utterly foolish emulation of Canada would be. Maybe the Canadian newspapers will tell us what proponents of socialized medicine won't.

Claim No. 1: Canada's System of Socialized Medicine Provides Sufficient Money to Deliver Care to All.

Canada spends about 9% of its GDP on health care and provides coverage for all, while the U.S. spends 14% and has millions of people uninsured. Proponents of a Canadian model thus conclude that the federal government could cover every American for what the country is spending now -- or less.

That argument ignores the fact that there is no government-run health care system in the world that is adequately funded. And the reason is simple: health care must compete with education, welfare, defense and other valid claims on government funds. As a result, every government-run system rations care, with bureaucrats and elected officials deciding who gets what and when.

• Case Study: Canadian hospitals need money. On Dec. 24, 1999, the Toronto Star reported, "The Ontario government is bailing out deficit-ridden hospitals to the tune of $196 million." This infusion marked "the second year in a row the Tory government has come to the rescue of about half of the province's hospitals." Indeed, the Ontario hospital system was forced to absorb a 10% decrease in funding between 1997 and 1999.
  
  
• Case Study: The shortage of doctors. Just one day earlier, Dec. 23, 1999, the Toronto Star ran the headline: "Ontario Government Report Calls For Up To 1,000 More MDs." In response to the report, the province's health minister said the government would provide "$11 million in 'short-term' aid . . ." and try to attract more foreign doctors, according to the article.
  
  
• Case Study: Shortages in the ER. Residents of Montreal can rest a little easier this summer. Doctors reached an agreement with the provincial government in Quebec so that emergency rooms will remain open, according to the Montreal Gazette (June 20, 2003). "In the summer and fall of 2002," the paper reports, "Quebec's general practitioners fought a pitched battle against Bill 114, a new law that compelled doctors to work in understaffed ERs or face $5,000 fines."
  
  Instead of fining non-ER doctors for not working in emergency rooms, the government will be giving them a bonus if they do.
  
  Claim No. 2: Canada Provides Universal Access to Care.
  
  Proponents of socialized medicine argue that the uninsured typically postpone seeing a doctor and end up in the emergency room, which costs the system a lot more than it would had they just gone to see a family doctor. If everyone has government-provided coverage, then you remove that costly inefficiency and people have access to care when they need it. Or do they?
  
  
• Case Study: Waiting lines in Canada. Access to a waiting line is not the same (nor as good) as access to a doctor. On Jan. 18, 2003, the Canadian Press carried the headline, "Send Cancer Patients To U.S., Alberta MDs Urge." The story begins, "Breast-cancer patients whose wait to see a specialist has jumped up to eight weeks from less than four should be sent out of province for treatment, the president of the Alberta Medical Association says."
  
  In a story about a proposal to allow private day surgeries in Vancouver, British Columbia, to reduce waiting times, the Vancouver Province (June 11, 2003) reports, "But even when the (Richmond) hospital was at its most efficient, 40% of patients were waiting three months or more (for elective surgery)."
  
  As bad as that is, it's better than England, where 57-year-old Peter Smith got his heart surgery a full five months after he first complained of chest pains to his general practitioner (London Observer, May 25, 2003).
  
  Claim No. 3: The Quality of Care in Canada Is as Good as or Better than the U.S.
  
  "Quality health care" means different things to different people. For individuals, quality health care usually means a good outcome, conveniently obtained at a reasonable price. But can you have quality health care if a patient can't see a doctor?
  
  
• Case Study: The quest for quality health care. The headline in the June 16, 2003, Vancouver Sun pretty much says it all: "Doctors Demand Patient Care Guarantees." The British Columbia Medical Association has released a paper calling for "the establishment of maximum wait times, or 'care guarantees' for various medical procedures," according to the story. The report "proposes that patients not helped within the guaranteed time frame should be able to seek care out of province—in a public or private facility—at no cost to themselves."
  
  In Canada it is against the law for a citizen to pay out of pocket for care that is provided by the government-run health care system. The only other countries that criminalize privately paying for health care are North Korea and Cuba.
  
  
• Case Study: Canadians heading south. But it isn't against the law for Canadians to cross the U.S. border and pay for care they can't get in Canada. In fact, the U.S. has become the safety valve for a foreign health care system that would implode economically and politically without access to U.S. doctors, hospitals and drugs.
  
  On Jan. 16, 2000, the New York Times titled a story, "Full Hospitals Make Canadians Wait and Look South." The article concludes: "As a result, Canada has moved informally to a two-tier, public-private system. Although private practice is limited to dentists and veterinarians, 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the United States, and many people are crossing the border for private care."
  
  Claim No. 4: In Canada's System, Everyone Is Treated the Same.
  
  The push for socialized medicine isn't just about health care; it's also a quest for social justice. Advocates don't want the rich to get better care than the poor. But the rationing that always accompanies a government-run system means that some people will not get the care they need, and it is nearly always society's marginal citizens—the poor, the very old and those with very high costs—who get substandard care, if they get care at all. Just consider some of these headlines from England:
  
  
• "Am I too old to be treated?" The Sunday Times, April 17, 1994.
  
  
• "Kidney patients die as costly dialysis machines lie idle," The Times, July 26, 1993.
  
  
• "Too old to be cured of cancer," The Times, Aug. 16, 1993.
  
  But there can be other perverse results from rationing. Greg Moulton of Guelph, Ontario, was in a three-month wait to get a CT scan "to learn the cause of his 'excruciating' headaches." Since York Central Hospital's radiology department was only open to the public at specified hours, the hospital decided to allow pet owners to bring in their animals in need of a CT scan after hours—for $300 a scan. "For dogs, a scan can be arranged within 24 hours," according to the Canadian Press ("Humans Wait in Pain, Dogs Don't," June 14, 1991).
  
  Another Canadian was more resourceful. On Dec. 18, 1999, the Washington Post reported that waiting lines for MRIs in Ontario had grown so long that one Ontario resident "booked himself into a private veterinary clinic that happened to have one of the machines, listing himself as 'Fido.'"
  
  In a socialist effort to avoid a two-tiered system where wealthy people can get health care but the poor can't, Canada has created a different kind of two-tiered system—where people can't get care, but dogs can.
  
  That is the story we are not being told.
  
  Mr. Jarvis is Chairman and Chief Executive of United Seniors Association.

[Proud_texan]

Add Seattle to the list. The two years I lived there ('99-'01) it was crawling with Canadians down to get medical care.

I don't know if it's true but one of them down for a MRI told me that there were more MRI machines in Seattle than all of British Columbia.