Replies

I guess I simply don't understand. I work for a Canadian company that owns a US subsidiary that I work for. Every person I meet I ask about the health care system and the horror stories. Not a single person is unhappy with the health care system and tell us the horror stories they hear about ours. I'm not talking about just floor workers,......I'm speaking of all walks of life from guys and gals on the floor to the executive office.

Well, has any of them ever had to go to a Canadian hospital? If they're in the prime of life, the answer is probably no (let's exclude maternity cases).

So until you actually have to go thru it, you don't know what it's about. I didn't have to (thank God!), but I did have to take a friend there once, for a dog-bite - and it was, literally, a 10-hour wait. And how about that stat about Seattle (one city) having more MRI machines than all of B.C. (an entire province)?!

There's also one further reason why you may not have heard anything. Canadians generally don't have much to brag about over the US (except maybe bacon and Olympic hockey), so this issue often becomes one of Canada's proudest boasts - which means you'll usually not hear a Canadian speak ill of it.

I, on the other hand, am not afraid to tell it like it is. And it's not as perfect a system as some Canadian nationalists would have you believe!

>>I guess I simply don't understand<<

Here's my insight:

When I was a young doctor, most of my older colleagues said to me, "These HMOs will never amount to anything-not one of my patients would want that."

And they were right. None of my patients want it, even today.

But most people are not patients.

What the non-patients want is a "system", provided by others, which takes care of everything and costs them nothing.

Politicians are well aware of this fantasy, which is why they try so hard to provide this imaginary creature.

Now, as this imaginary creature has grown and grown, it has started to consume real resources which are increasingly diverted from the care of actual patients. All those bureaucrats and "health care executives" have to get paid, after all. And actual patients don't like it, and resent it.

But the vast, non-patient majority-they 'effin love it. They love it!

They love the politicians who design it, they love their employers who provide it, they love the companies that wholesale it-they love everything about it.

And I imagine that non-sick Canadians love their version even better, because it conveys an air of moral superiority on top of everything else.

Why do you think that, all over the Western world, governments which do not provide houses to live in and food to eat (both vitally necessary to life) are in the "health care" business?

Because it makes their non-sick constituents fantasies (seemingly) come true.

And they love 'em for it, bless their little politician hearts.

Very, very little of this has anything to do with sick people, doctor services, surgery, or anything else at all real.