Posted on 06/12/2004 9:36:44 PM PDT by quidnunc
While many Americans look to Canada for solutions to our health care mess, Canadians, in increasing numbers, look southward, to us.
Canada's National Post recently reported on a nationwide poll. "More than half of Canadians support a parallel private health care system that would let patients pay for speedier service," Tom Blackwell's June 1 article summarized. "The poll found 51 percent favour a two-tier system, with support highest in Quebec, at 68 percent, and Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the birthplace of medicare, at 57 percent."
Canada's political insiders hardly know how to react. No major party espouses private medicine, even in the watered-down form considered in the poll. How could so many Canadians want something very much like what America has? It's unpatriotic!
America endures a mixed private-public system. Health care is still "privately provided," though our Medicare programs are nearly as large as our private insurance companies combined, and regulations on health care providers and insurance companies abound.
In Canada, on the other hand, it's pretty much government through and through. Though "free medicine" sounds great, its implementation has led to more than a few problems. For something "free," it comes with a high price tag: Canadians pay for the service in extremely high taxes. Worse yet, Canadian patients are often forced to be extraordinarily patient, even at the cost of their health.
If you need a test, getting it in Canada is not the speedy thing it is in America. There's usually a lag. This applies to treatments, too, especially the older you get.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
I'd like to print this report out and slap them upside the head with it (then follow up with open-fists)
Go to the source document on Town Hall, there are embedded links to the National Post article and the study.
First time I heard anything about socialized medicine was outta the mouth of a SIL heavily into union politics. Twenty years later it's "mainstream".
Three days? The last time I needed an MRI, the only wait I had was due to the person already in the machine when I walked in the door. And that was in 1987, when there were far fewer machines around!
Just in case those morons were wondering why the national decline in union membership has coincided with such things as minimum wage laws, Social Security, etc. . . .
I like this - one guy who I've come to know very well approached me once, wondering about why the trend in young people is to be conservative.
When I told him that for myself, it had a heck of a lot to do with oppressive taxation and squandering of my hard earned dollars by fat-cat gov't bureaucrats. Watching my money (confiscated from my paycheck before I ever had a chance to see it) being thrown down a rat hole every week.
He came back with all the great 'services' we get in return for that money. HA!
Incidentally, the union I am surrounded by is the Communication Workers of America - and they have many tens of thousands of gov't workers in their ranks. Any surprise?
Ditto that!
Last year my Primary Care Physician decided he wanted me to have one....and made a telephone call while I was in his office....
Less that an hour later --- I was in the machine, after taking a preliminary treadmill stress test...
It was NOT a profit generating move --- I belong to an HMO, in addition to having private insurance though my prior employer....
Semper Fi
I've watched our Medicaid system help two of my grandkids with serious problems at birth, one with half his heart not formed, the other with a soft traichea. Both cost in excess of $500k, with the parents poor as church mice and no insurance. Both my grandkids, 10 and 2, are 100% normal, healthy kids now. In Canada, they'd probably not have survived.
I've needed my private insurance for major work on both legs over the past 18 months. I've had absolutely excellent service from top specialists. But my grandkids on Medicaid had access to the same quality specialists. That's the genius of our mixed public-private system. Market forces keep service quality high, and the government provides it's aid via the marketplace.
It's an imperfect system, yes--expensive, yes. But we all know family that wouldn't be here but for the top-notch health care system we have in the good ol' USA.
???
Where did he do that?
Canada's citizens are far ahead of the major parties. After experiencing the state run health care plan, its no wonder they want more choices.
I read this article on Townhall just a few minutes ago. I was amazed, though not surprised, to read that Medicare had risen to the same size in our country as private medicine. I believe we are in a Medical crisis in our coutry. More money is being spent by private insurance as a way of subsidizing Medicare. Companies who bill private insurance doso at a higher and higher rate because they are compensated less and less for more and more visits from medicare patients.
The end result is the insurance companies charge more and more money to the corporation who in turn starts increasing their premiums and co-pays from their employees who demand their representatives do something to fix the problem.
There are two ways we can go:
1) A more efficient, Newt Gingrich Medicare system that isn't such a drag on private insurers.
or
2) Socialized medicine.
I believe that we will go way #1 but it is quite possible that we will go way #2. I have great sorrow for that fact but that is the way it is.
Incidentally, we are going to get worse as the baby boomers start using Medicare.... before we get better. We will either go one way or the other within the next 20 years, I predict.
The rise in Medicare also comes from many group insurance companies throwing you out at 65 whether you're still working or not. It's that old, "Let Uncle Sam take care of you".
"Oh, Canada, we stand on guard for thee."
we = the USA
I needed a MRI recently after having a seizure. I waited about 30 minutes. It wasn't free, but there was no lag in getting it. (That's in Virginia.)
Ping to my post #16. Same as you.
Geeze, it took them long enough !!
Does private coverage have hidden loop-holes that insurers use to deny benefits? Is there a down-side to private health-care?
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