Rebuttals welcome.
Single payer is socialism. Period.
And in Canada the wait times are both inane (ten month wait for prenatal care) and lethal when cancer patients die before their treatment is scheduled.
And that their health care sucks is best illustrated when no end of their political leaders have to come to the USA for treatments they can’t get in Canada on a timely basis.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/02/23/Canadian-premier-defends-US-surgery/33941266929997/
Not exactly the most conservative entity in the world....
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/nadeem-esmail/canada-free-health-care_b_3733080.html
I’ll take the system these guys have figured out any day of the week....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uPdkhMVdMQ
Future Trump “talking points” to support his argument about single payer...
“he files her invoices online, and the vast majority are simply paid — quietly, quickly, and without hassle. There is no runaround. There are no fights. Appointments aren’t interrupted by vexing phone calls. Care is seldom denied (because everybody knows the rules). She gets her checks on time, sees her patients on schedule, takes Thursdays off, and gets home in time for dinner.”
I suspect we have at least some doctors who couldn’t resist the temptation to file a few extra invoices. Who would know?
The U.S. insurance companies, though ostensibly private, are defacto government agents, at least to some large extent, by virtue of government’s regulatory requirements.
The U.S. has already, arguably, a “socialist” health care system. The contracts between patient and doctor, and patient and insurance company, is far from free and clean. Both are heavy laden with infringements by the 3rd party of government.
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Also... re #1... his argument is semantic. Socialism is a wide term.
I guess this person can not be bothered to hear about stories of people leaving this country (doctors and nurses for jobs) and patients (seeking more timely care) to the United States. Also, clerical and janitorial staff in hospitals being paid more than their private sector counterparts, making hospitals big union shops controlled by groups like CUPE (Canadian Public Employees Union) and OPSEU (Ontario Public Sector Employees Union). What about also people dying while waiting for treatments that they probably would have gotten faster had the hospitals not been these union shops? Saying stuff like this at my parents’ home would be a surefire way to get the china flying there.
Vermont tried single payer and ended up canceling due to anticipated costs. It might be nice to hear what the U.S. experience was and match it against this piece.
1) Canadian health care IS socialized medicine with wage and price controls, the argument that it is not because it is managed by one insurer is a total lie.
2) As in most socialized systems, there IS longer wait times for most Canadians for all sorts of procedures and that is why it is routine for Canadians to take their money and go across the border to get faster necessary service. Notice that there was not one mention of the actual amount of time Canadians wait here.
3) Most new drug discoveries are happening in the US, not in Canada. This makes it harder to get the newer expensive drugs in Canada and I have personally known Canadians to come to the US for treatments for conditions like liver, heart, and kidney disease because Canadians simply do not have the resources a (formerly) free market US health care system has.
Canadian drug coverage is also heavily subsidized by the Canadian tax payer and people routinely rip off Canadians for getting them to subsidize their out of country purchases. So Canadians pay twice. Once for their own drugs and once for other people buying theirs.
4) Canadian Doctors are NOT compensated well for their work. I have had personal testimony of Canadians bribing their doctors for service and personally have known Canadian physicians who leave Canada to practice in other countries to supplement their incomes. Another lie.
Fascicized medicine then, to be accurate. Fascism is just socialism by govt regulation and rules and licenses. The veener of private property exists so that govt has a private sector to blame for economic failures.
I’m on Medicaid.
I’m very happy with it. Small co-payments, no insurance forms to fill out, I get to see my own doctor and I don’t have to face financial ruin for big-ticket expenses.
I haven’t even bothered with Obamacare, which is simply ridiculous and is not single payer at all.
When the government pays the bill the government will control (ration) the care. For years Canadians have been coming across the US border for health care that is either not available or available only with a long wait back home. Both a Canadian MP and the Premier of Newfoundland caused a furor when they went to the US for their medical treatment
If I could summarize the comparison between Canadian and U.S. health care as simply as possible, I'd say this: Canada is superior for simple things, while the U.S. is where you want to be if you have complex injuries or illnesses.
I should also point out that this isn't really a comparison of a socialist system vs. a capitalist system. The U.S. doesn't really have a capitalist health care system. Any industry that is built on a system of third-party payments is bound to function just like a socialist bureaucracy -- and it doesn't matter whether the "third party" is a government agency or an insurance company. The mere presence of a third party in the process means the conventional market forces of pricing related to supply and demand go out the window.
” In socialized medical systems, the doctors work directly for the state. “
Do I really need to read the rest of this when the number one point is wrong?
Working directly for the state would be a communist system.
Simple economic definition of capitalism, socialism, communism:
Capitalism: Production and distribution controlled by private sector.
Socialism: Production - private, distribution - government.
Communism: Both production and distribution controlled by government.
And the 1 mlion dollar question... How homogeneous is the Canadian population (in culture in particular) compared to the US?
I can remember a few years ago doing research on another topic in Google News Archives when I came across a 1982 article in the Ottawa Citizen. It was about a doctor from Ontario (can not recall where he was from specifically) who got fed up with the Canadian system and moved to Arkansas. I recall him commenting on how he could serve his patients in Arkansas in a more attentive and timely manner than he could under the Canadian system, all sort of things he really noticed that he could do so much more in his practice as a doctor in the U.S. than in Canada.
Certainly you realize how pointless it is to post that here.
30 million population that can’t handle it....The TAX rate in Kanada is close to 40%.....on average. Screw socialist and government run insurance....This article is pure BS....
If it were true, Canada would be inundated with American doctors .... but alas, reality varies from the fictional spin. Several doctors in our local hospital are professional “refugees” from the Canadian Healthcare system. “Just across the border” American doctors have set up shop to get the “patients willing to pay anything” to get emergency or priority procedures.