Posted on 09/21/2017 12:08:48 PM PDT by Sopater
Americans would be better off with government-paid healthcare, claims a Canadian doctor, but a fellow Canadian says the wait times may literally kill you.
"I don't recommend it," Canadian health care broker Rick Baker says of Canada's "single payer" healthcare system, which is held up by liberals as a healthcare system for Americans to emulate.
In a USA Today op-ed, hospital administrator Dr. Danielle Martin writes that the Canadian system outperforms the U.S. on quality and access to care despite "nasty rumors" in the U.S. media about the quality of care.
She goes on to acknowledge that Canadians "sometimes wait too long" for non-urgent or elective procedures but claims the Canadian government and healthcare workers are "working hard" to improve access to hip replacements, cataract surgery and other procedures deemed non-urgent.
She goes on to claim that Canadians always receive urgently-needed care and never see a bill.
Baker, who lives in West Vancouver, British Columbia, points out the World Health Organization rates his country poorly among other industrialized nations.
A survey of 11 industrialized countries, in fact, found that Canada's wait times came in dead last, a Canadian newspaper reported in February. One-third of Canadians reported they waited four hours or more for emergency room care and 56 percent said they waited four weeks or longer to see a specialist, also the worst average.
Citing WHO figures, a Canadian healthcare website shows Canada leads the U.S. but still ranks No. 30 worldwide while the U.S. is No. 37.
The quality of a surgical procedure in Canada is "fine" once you go under the knife, says Baker, but most procedures are considered elective with the exception of imminent death or loss of a limb.
"If you're hit by a bus, that's not an elective thing," he explains. "If, however, you have rheumatoid arthritis, and it's attacked your hip joint and you're waiting two years to get surgery as many people do in Canada, in that time the rheumatoid arthritis will be on the hip joint and it'll attack your pelvis and you'll be in a heck of a situation."
That's a situation in Baker is familiar with: His wife has rheumatoid arthritis and got surgery in the United States.
"The soonest that she could get a hip replacement (in Canada) was five months," says Baker. "Her doctor in Phoenix, Arizona told her that if she waited five months, he would have to replace part of her pelvis in addition to your hip joint. But the Canadian system doesn't recognize that."
Meanwhile, a typical Canadian family of four will pay $12,057 for health care this year, an increase of approximately 70 percent over the last 20 years.
Here’s the ‘elephant in the room’ question that nobody ever asks. Should people who work hard for a living and can afford better health insurance be served better and faster than parasites who live off of taxpayers?
When you go to the Drs office you’re told SIT! STAY! The DR will come.
And further down the article:
Meanwhile, a typical Canadian family of four will pay $12,057 for health care this year, an increase of approximately 70 percent over the last 20 years.
Apparently, your Canadian tax return isn't considered a "bill."
In 2014, 52,513 Canadians travelled beyond our borders to seek medical treatment, compared with 41,838 in 2013. The numbers suggest that the Canadian health care system could not comply with the needs and demands of a substantial number of Canadian patients, according to the study.
Sooner or later, the health care system will be used to reward or punish “proper” views and activities. Party card comrade?
Wealthy Canadians, Brits and others flee here for timely medical care. That should tell us SOMETHING!
Mine “sees me” for about 20 minutes max, ten of which are spent, in my presence, working on my “dossier of maladies." I am left with the impression that writing is more important than healing. OTOH, my wife goes to a doctor at Stanford Medical Center, and although she has a better written medical record, she is never confronted with her caregivers, creating that record in her presence. They also take whatever time is necessary to care for her medical issues. I'd tell you the medical group* to which my doctor belongs, but they would probably track me down and threaten to sue me for telling the truth about them. * I will allow that it ISN'T Kaiser!
Wealthy Canadians, Brits and others flee here for timely medical care. That should tell us SOMETHING!
That’s just the Rich ,they were always like that
Why isn’t any government anywhere trying free choice, free association of doctors and patients and the free market?
I swear if one tiny country tried it, they would create an avalanche which would destroy a main socialist article of faith.
Any Canadian FReeper, please give me a basis for comparison. In March I had a regularly scheduled follow-up with my cardiologist, who suggested a stress test since it had been several years since my last one. We scheduled it for mid May with a follow-up in June. At the follow up he said there were anomalies on the display and gave me the option of wait and see or a proactive cardiac catheterization. I chose the procedure, and got a scheduling call within two days after the visit, Friday I think. They scheduled it for Monday morning.
Long story short, though I’d had no symptoms, they found my old stent blocked and a new blockage in another artery and did the repairs.
My question is, under the Canadian system, would I have even been looked at yet, let alone fixed up and back at rec b’ball?
I am not an expert on waiting times, but I know for a fact one like yours would likely be a good deal longer up in my country. Many have died up here waiting for cancer treatments and other things. Link enclosed for a more detailed study:
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/effect-of-wait-times-on-mortality-in-canada
Most of that research involved me spending time on British Columbia's *official* health care website.Among the things I found were that in BC if you get a hip replacement within 6 months of it being established that you need one (that is after an orthopedic surgeon gives a diagnosis) you've been well served by the province's health service.
My personal experience (having had both hips replaced) is that both times I needed one I,an ordinary middle class American,was in the recovery room of a world famous hospital within 10 business days of having called the surgeon's office for an initial evaluation.
I also learned that in BC there's at least one type of heart surgery (they didn't specify which type) that you can expect to wait up to a year to have done.I worked in health care for almost 25 years and *nobody* ever had to wait for more than a day or two for *any* kind of heart surgery at our hospital,a world famous Boston hospital.
And lastly...a few years ago a Premier of one of Canada's provinces (can't recall which one) needed heart surgery.Needless to say he could have,as a well known figure in the country,gone to any hospital he wanted to in Montreal,Toronto,Vancouver or elsewhere.But he had it done in the United States.That speaks volumes to me!
Canada's a great country...but I'm glad I don't have to endure their health system,
Check out my Post #14 if you have a minute.
I had a heart attack 14 years ago. I waited in ER for 3 hours with chest pains because was deemed “not urgent”, i.e. I was still conscious. As a result of the delay they couldn’t use plaque busting drugs and unneeded angioplasty and stents. I never had a follow up appointment at any time following the surgery.
The Canadian doctor is correct that people get “urgent” care, i.e. If you come in with severe injuries following a car accident, are in full cardiac arrest at the hospital, convulsions, etc. I have seen people wait hours to get stitched with significant cuts, broken bones, raging temperatures. And don’t even bother coming in with common flu symptoms or you can wait all night to see someone for 60 seconds.
Canadian health care is rationed. Operating rooms stay idle because surgeons are only allowed a few hours each week. It can take years to get a family doctor if you relocate and many rural areas have no doctors within 60 miles.
We also suffer from a lack of specialists. You can wait over a year to see some specialists. An uncle of mine waited off work, on pins and needles for 11 months waiting for a quadruple bypass. The Stalinist purity of single payer does kill people.
Our health care system seems to be fine if you are discovered to have something serious. I received what I would consider good treatment for thymoma. OTOH, I have just been told that I can finally have knee replacement surgery after waiting since July, 2016. That’s nearly a year and a half, and not for something trivial, but for being able to function again.
People up here have no idea how expensive our system actually is because the payments are hidden, or called something else.
I've had one,brief exposure to Canada's health system.Admittedly it doesn't allow a reasonable person to draw any conclusions about the country's system but...
January 2014...driving south toward Montreal and home on a day that started,where I had spent the night,at -40F.I reached a town about an hour south of Val d'Or and wound up rear ending a guy (at about 7MPH...I just barely tapped him) stopped at a light.The airbags deployed and I was slightly injured by the airbag itself.I was brought to a nearby hospital at about 9AM.
Long story short I was told it would be at least 5 hours before I was examined.Given that I assumed that I was not badly hurt (which might not have been the case...I learned later that airbags can cause fairly serious brain injuries),and given that basically nobody there seemed to speak English,I left.
Like I said...mine was just one experience which may,or may not,be typical of healthcare up north.
It's good to hear that Canadians can get urgent treatment on a timely basis.I recall years ago being in Florida in January and seeing a Canadian paper on the newsstand (half of Florida's "residents" in January are Canadians) with the headline "200 Cancer Patient To Be Sent To The US For Treatment".Presumably that was because of a shortage of doctors or hospital beds.
However...I believe that the citizens of a great country like Canada should be able to get things like cancer treatment *and* knee replacements done in a timely fashion.
But I can't vote there so it could be argued that my opinion means nothing at the end of the day.
“People up here have no idea how expensive our system actually is because the payments are hidden, or called something else.”
That is because hospitals (as you probably know quite well) are basically closed union shops run by CUPE or OPSEU or AUPE. The clerical and janitorial staff at such places typically earn more than their private sector counterparts. That is the major reason why no politician in this country dares to take on the whole system even armed with the truth because of the unions and their money and how media up here long ago framed the narrative about this debate (any changes to favour doctors and patients and freedom of choice is American or un-Canadian).
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