Posted on 11/24/2004 8:34:45 AM PST by quidnunc
What's the defining characteristic of a government health service? It's one word, a word that, in its medical context, doesn't exist south of the border — "waiting," as in "waiting list," "waiting times," waiting, waiting, waiting.
I was sick over the summer and, down in New Hampshire, I went to see the local doctor, who referred me to a specialist. Let's just run through that manoeuvre again, in case it happened too quickly for those accustomed to Quebec levels of treatment: I saw the GP on Tuesday, got referred, saw the specialist Thursday. As is often the case in the U.S., the doctor was Canadian, and indeed came from a long line of Canadian doctors — both his parents practise in Ottawa. Making idle chitchat as his fingers felt his way around my fleshly delights, he explained that "waiting" is built into the concept of a government health service: "If you need surgery," he said, "it's in my interest to get you in and operated on as soon as possible, because that's money for me. The faster it happens, the better my cash flow. But when the government runs the system, every time you get operated on it costs the government money. So it's in their interest to restrict or delay your access. When you look at the overall budgets — salaries, buildings — it's not hard to understand that the level of service you provide to the patient is one of your few discretionary costs. So the incentive is to reduce that."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at westernstandard.ca ...
Sure...
Tom Tancredo
Jim Sensenbrenner
J.D. Hayworth
Jim DeMint
Larry Craig
You're a smart guy. Now it's your turn to come up with a few.
Not with any realistic chance of obtaining power. The last guy to try was Pete Wilson in California with Prop 187...and he was seriously punished.
Maybe that'll change as things break down.
Not with any realistic chance of obtaining power. The last guy to try was Pete Wilson in California with Prop 187...and he was seriously punished.
Maybe that'll change as things break down.
You ever spent any time in a country with socialized medicine? I have. It cured me of any desire to see it enacted over here.
It's not a realistic solution.
There simply is not enough money to provide everyone with unlimited medical care. Socialized medicine solves the problem by reducing the quality of care for everyone to an affordable level - and usually not openly or successfully.
Hard choices must be made. A straighforward market system is too contentious politically. Some concessions must be made to those without resources.
Everyone doesn't need unlimited medical care.
Yes, and that's one of the reasons it's hard to get an accurate picture of what is really happening. Each Province is different . All the Canadian Gov't does is enforce the Canada Health Act and is suppose to contribute 50% of costs . The reality is it contributes less than 20 . Hospitals are run by an administrator who is paid by the hospital board , not the government . The government does not offer any medical advice , it only pays for the service. Groups like the Conservative Frazer Institute take every opportunity to be critical . Of a Liberal run system . It's usually justified , trouble is , it gets exaggerated .
The long wait for an MRI can be an exaggeration. Depending on where one lives and the reason for the MRI . I know a lady , suffering from a concussion , who had one and another a day later . I also know a 34 year old who had to pay $700 for one in a private clinic because he required it for insurance reasons . But then he called one day and had it the next.
Wrong - a hospital with a guy laying on the sidewalk WILL hustle to get him inside, if for no other reason, to avoid the lawsuit.
Ah - liberalism. The culture of death.
I've done better - I've seen socialized medicine in THIS country - the US Military Health Care System.
Granted, I last saw it 15 yrs ago, so things may have changed, but I seriously doubt it.
Like the Canadian system, as soon as the docs could escape, they did - to earn more.
Like the Canadian system, the supply of services were fixed, the demand was not, so, since they never charged, queueing was the only method left. As a kid, I knew that if I went in to get a plantar wart dug out of my foot, I had to bring along a big book.
Like the Canadian system, all were equal, but some were more equal than others. Active duty soldiers were the top of the list. As one, I STILL had a two hour wait as the FIRST patient of the day at the derm clinic. And the civil servants manning the clinics front desks could not be moved off dead center to help without a D-9 bulldozer.
Ask any soldier about the military health care system. Better yet, ask their families. Then you will get a feel for how socialized medicine would feel in America.
Yeah?
Well if you don't like socialized medicine who's going to pay for the medical care of those without resources? What I'm recommending is a form of triage - a standard medical procedure used when resources are limited.
As for death. It happens to us all. Medicine is a form of human intervention which puts it off - at significant cost.
Medical care will always be less than demand. there are only two ways to bring them into line: price and queueing. THat's basic economics. Socializing the medicine removes pricing from the equation, enforcing queueing. Waits for medical care reach scandalous levels, like those in Canada and Britain. Worse, socializing medicine removes choice from the consumer of medical care, and places it in anothers' hand, be it the gov't bureaucrat, the HMO, or your tender mercies. And most damning of all, socialization of medicine does not allow for mitigation at the margins - where charities can step in and provide services the government will not. In Canada, it is impossible to pay a doctor to care for you. And that means they can't do care for a charitable organization at nominal pay. That is why price and the free market can and must be the method best suited for delivering high quality care at the level that the consumer agrees on. If the whole-body CAT scan is too expensive every year, then the consumer will do it every two-or-three years, well aware of the risks of delay. Now, that is not to say there cannot be socialization at the margins, but it should be voluntary socialization: I volunteer to be part of a group health plan because that meets my needs best. Or the requirement for basic, supportive care for indigents, with funding at the state or local level. You unhappy with the care you receive as an indegent? That is the consequence of your not working during your life. You get basic, aplliative care. But you don't get a liver transplant just so you can go back to the bottle. Does that sound too heartless for you? True, death comes to us all. Your plan, though, would have the government decide who is 'less human' than others. Mine lets market forces, mitigated by human charity, do the rationing. Yours will cut off the old coot who is too mean to die, but it also takes away the choice from a dying grandparent to choose between something life-extending-but-expensive, and sending that money on to the grandkids. BTW - I just had Thanksgiving dinner with one of those "elderly old vegetables" whom you are so quick to turn into Soylent Green. She may be frail, but she is a wealth of information about life before New Deal socialism. And yes, she is a reflexive Democrat and all that, but I would pay anything to keep her around for as long as she wants to stay. You would take that away from me. And that, my poor fellow, is why Liberalism is the culture of death.
I'm perfectly prepared to allow market forces to work. If you can pay for it you get it.
But...
I want government to make different decisions as to how it uses resources it allocates for medical aid.
You want to pay for services for "a tired old vegetable"? Fine. Nobody's going to stop you. Just don't come to the government for help.
As for negative characterizations...you're just as guilty as I am; you assume that the poor DESERVE whatever the market gives them, that they are poor BECAUSE they didn't work. In fact, that's less supported by evidence than my claim that smokers, alcoholics,drug addicts, and the sexually promiscuous make a conscious choice.
I would also defend my claim that it is better for society to use its scarce resources to provide quality health care to its young and productive members than to its retirees.
Say what? BS...
ping for canadian health "care"
Say what? BS...
Yo, yo, yo -- thanks for the full article! :-)
"My German and French friends tell me that the poor receive much better health care there than they do in our country."
Ahh, now you finally got down to the crux of it.
The poor may fare better in Germany or France (I'm not sure this is is accurate) but you forget to count the cost of this as well.
The poor fare better but it is at the expense of everyone else who can afford better care. There are trade-offs here and you are ignoring those.
Is it right for one person to another person's money and give it to someone else? Is it right for gov't to take one person's money and give it to someone else? This is the essence of socialism and is exactly what happens in healthcare, welfare, etc. That you see this as a morally right thing to do when done by gov't means you have a blind side when it comes to knowing right from wrong.
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