I used to have an excellent doctor but he packed in during the last NDP rain in BC.
I hear he now has a thriving practice in the States, pity I can’t drive to Hawaii.

As good as commenting gets Kate. Thanks for the repost.

Your best observation is that all kinds of profits are made in the health care system (often by nurses who are so overworked that they can hardly get in ten minutes of gabbing with each other every quarter hour). Very few people seem to get that point. More importantly, the groups that get these guaranteed profits act the same as any evil monopoly by protecting the monopoly rather than providing better service. Until someone gets hurt economically for poor service, the situation will not change. Why would it?

The most powerful check and balance of all - the ability of the customer to refuse payment to protest inadequate service - has been removed from the equation.

Except that even in a private health care system, this "most powerful check and balance" isn't available either -- because health isn't a commodity.

Instead of cherry-picking horror stories from Canada and feel-good stories from the States, try comparing both all multiple measures. You'll find that, on the whole, the US system is more expensive per capita, less safe for patients, and produces poorer health outcomes.

The "not for profit" lie is so bold, so obvious, so outrageous, that it's difficult to understand how it's survived this long. The truth is precisely the opposite.

Only if you mistake "not for profit" with "volunteer." NFP status isn't incompatible with paying out salaries, service fees, etc.

"Except that even in a private health care system, this "most powerful check and balance" isn't available either -- because health isn't a commodity."

That is an awesome debate technique, A'dam. Here, let me try:

"A legislature isn't "the most powerful check and balance" against the executive branch - because democracy is not a zebra."

I am indebted to you, ma'am.

Here's what I tell those passionate proponents of the idea that all Canadians should have equal rights to health care.

"Is there a law stating that all Canadians have to eat the same quality and quantity of food? Or, do those with the means, or who choose to spend their money on this as a priority, get better food?

Is there a law stating that we must all sleep in the same quality home. Or, if you have a good job, or sacrifice, or are lucky enough to be born with the money, would anyone question your right to get a better house for yourself?

Then why are we forcing people to have equal health across Canada? Why can't you spend your money, as you do for food or shelter, to get yourself whatever healthcare you want?

Is food and shelter a more basic right than healthcare? "

Usually, there is no response.

Cherrypicking? In that I "cherrypicked" our own family's experience?

You are truly an idiot.

Thanks for reposting this. It made me think of my own Mom's passing away in 1997. She had liver cancer. My Dad had to threaten to punch a hospital manager back into the stone-age just to get her moved out of the hallway. At the time they had an entire wing shut down. Not economically viable, apparently.

This was in Toronto, by the way. I will never forget that and what they put our family through.

Thanks for debunking the NFP myth. I call "non-profits" what they are in the USA: Tax exempt.

I really hate the way the left turns the healthcare debate into an either or scenario; either we have the Canadian system or we have the American system, and complete ignore the dozens of different systems for providing healthcare from around the world.

It's not just rural areas that are suffering. My wife’s elderly grand parents have been to the emergency room in Mississauga 4 times in the past few years. They have not had to wait less than 6 hours on any of those visits. Even the local clinics for minor stuff usually come with a 2 hour wait. There is no benefit from our health care system to working people in this country. We get poor service at a premium cost.

And let's not forget that many of the US health care systems that are bad are ALSO bad because of crappy/ intentionally disconnected feedback loops.

"Zero tier" is an excellent description of the state of "health care" in this country.

Here in B.C., one of the biggest problems, once you get outside the Lower Mainland, is lack of specialists in most communities, requiring long trips to the few communities where said care is available.

Combine that with drastically overcrowded and under equipped hospitals, and you have a situation where medical staff are in constant crisis mode.

This causes a lot of good people to take early retirement, exacerbating the shortage of staff. Governments talk of recruiting in Third World countries to fill the positions. The fact that those countries will now have shortages doesn't seem to matter, even while we're castigating the U.S. for raiding our doctors and nurses.

Eventually, even the most "socialist" will realize the current system is failing, probably when enough of us die in the Emergency ward, and we'll have to open the system to private medical providers.

I can't wait.

What a gloriously destructive story to befall Canadian leftists...

Kate:

Fantastic piece. Well worth a repost, particularly since nothing has changed since then, except that the same problems are now worse.

Interesting point that there is no real difference between the profit of an organization or the profit of an individual. If the differene between revenues and expenses (aka profit) is distributed to shareholders or is distributed as increased salaries to employees, there is no difference to the consumer in the end. Either the shareholders make the profit or the employees make the profit. In a monopoly, the consumers are the ones that suffer.

Being from the city, the problems I am familiar with are the lack of doctors, the never-ending waits in emergency rooms, the huge waiting lists (for just about anything) and the poor service.

But in rural areas I can imagine that you have all those problems and additionally you have a lack of access to the rationed facilities as well.

The other point I want to rebut is A'dam's comment that health is not a commodity.

The government doesn't provide "health". They provide "care" and that indeed is a commodity just like any other. It's why we don't have shortages of dentists or veterinarians in the same small towns where hospitals are being closed and doctors can't be found.

"Eventually, even the most "socialist" will realize the current system is failing, probably when enough of us die in the Emergency ward, and we'll have to open the system to private medical providers.

I can't wait."

dmorris,

The Left has an infinite capacity to tolerate death. They support our Islamic enemies ... big on death that bunch. They seem to have no problem with the Maxist philosophy that have seen tens of millions of deaths in it's efforts to be the way of the world.

Even those who do less killing certainly have no problem with having it's populations live in hopeless misery and poverty IE Cuba and now Venezuela.

You will wait forever if you are waiting for these genetically flawed carbon units to come to what you might term "their senses".

What say you?

The old Soviet joke:
A man is negotiating to buy a refrigerator, and is told to expect delivery "in ten years, on a Friday."

The man replies "Oh no, not then, that's when the plumber is coming!"

It's the same with health care in Canada. There's just one difference - you can live w/o a refrigerator, or a TV or a plumber...

There's just one difference - it's a hell of a lot more important to get timely medical care...all the more reason we should allow people to pay for it instead of dying waiting lists for the sake of superior "Canadian values".

I agree with you completely and I am a doctor. I've seen way worse cases of neglect and dysfuntion in the system than the moron who wrote about cherry picking can ever know.

And that idiot A'dam doesn't know what he is talking about when he talks about statistics. The left loves certain statistics yet completely ignores outcomes that doctors can actually affect like mortality from cancer and coronary artery disease where one's outcome in the US exceeds that of Canada. Do they look at specific stats? No they love aggregate ones like longetivity or infant mortality - things that involve confounders such as lifestyle or differences in data collection.

The other thing that people who love so called public Health care forget to think about is that a lot of people cannot even pay for the medication that we give them. So most people have private health plans in this country to pay for their expensive medication.

If any of these people think health care is expensive in the United States - just wait until it is Public care. If they expect to get the same services with tiny waiting lists then just wait until every Union, Hospital, and Physician lobbies the government for more money. Money no-one counts.

"Cherrypicking? In that I "cherrypicked" our own family's experience?"

Just because it's a personal experience does not therefore mean it is representative of all or most experiences and that being said, it is indeed cherrypicking. The fact is, Kate you are free to purchase medical services privately in Canada, from physicians who have opted out of the public system. So why don't you do so?

Another personal story: My dog was sick so I took her on a weekend to Vetrinary Emergency Hospital paid the fees and she was attended to in 30 minutes. My daughter had to be attended to after a cat attack and went to the local emergenency for the required stitches and shots.It took 4 hours but it was paid for indirectly by my taxes. What kind of society offers faster treatment to its pets than to its kids.Welcome to Leftyland.

"The fact is, Kate you are free to purchase medical services privately in Canada, from physicians who have opted out of the public system."

You can't even buy a private MRI in this province. What are you on?

Kate,

Why do you remain in that horrid province. Alberta or BC will let you buy a lot more private care and the economies are brisker. Also, the politics are a tad less Socialist.

Either province would be proud to have you as a resident.

A'dam,

I read Kate's post then scanned it again. I don't see any reference there to the American Health Care System. Why do you believe that there are only solutions to be found from our neighbors to the south? I mean it is not like Canadians regularly go down there to spend money to get adequate health care.

If health care is not a commodity, then just what is it?

Why is it "fair" that I have to suffer unreasonable long wait times just because someone with less means can't afford quicker care?

John West:

The health care system has the same problems in every province in Canada. Calgary needed to fly the lady pregnant with quintuplets to Montana because there were no neo-natal units available across the entire country.
Sometimes you have to make a stand...

I've heard enough horror stories about Canadian socialized healthcare to cause me to "hate" the system. Kate's experience, as expressed in the post, is in fact not unusual and hardly qualifies as a horror story compared to what others have endured. I don't mean that as an afront to Kate, just to point out that what she writes about is common.

My own experience with a sick daughter is worse by a magnitude of thousands of percent. From incompetent doctors, misdiagnosis, filthy rooms, to unioned nurses offering slovenly care, it's a tale of horror. My wife is an ex-nurse, and she herself is stunned by the poor care available today compared to what she offered years ago.

The fact is, the triple hammer of socialized health care, powerful unions, and dirty doctors creating monopolies within the system has created a system that is hit and miss. A hit gives one decent care in a timely fashion ... a miss causes a nightmare of pain, suffering, and third-world levels of care ... but it's all a matter of luck.

A'adam is a typical shill for socialized medicine ... either a member of the establishment who gets timely care as a result ... or a healthy individual who has never needed the services of the state run no-care system. A'adam has obviously never ended up in the care of a unionized hammer-head nurse, or a doctor churning the system for bucks, not to mention subjected to the whims of the army of bureaucrats who move at the speed of grass growing.

Kate calls it a "cow" ... I call it a giant shapeless blob that exists only for its own sake having long forgotten what it was supposed to be.

Kate, I suggest you re-post this every year on the date of your mother's death. Let's call it National Healthcare Day, and solicit stories -- either good or bad -- about our nation's healthcare system.

Great post Kate. Was it ever published in the print media? If not, it certainly should be.

A'dam, who called your personal family grievance "cherry picking" deserves some sort of asshole of the year award.

I left my rural Saskatchewan home partly because the combination of closed hospitals, retiring doctors and crappy roads was an aggrevation that an old fart with health problems didn't need. Now I'm in Calgary, where I was able to get on a GP's patient list only by using a connection - something for which I don't appologize one bit.

Back in the 1940s, my family worked hard to get the initial public health care system in Swift Current Health Region No. 1. It was a blessing to families who had suffered through "wait periods" of like, forever, except for emergencies which the country doctors often handled on a "what you can pay, when you can pay it" basis. The new system worked beautifully for about 25 years, i.i. as long as it was administered by volunteer local hospital boards, which usually included the Reeve of the RM and the local doctor. It flatlined when control was ceded to massive central bureaucracies and when rural people lost their traditional ethic that you only go to the doctor if the pain is unbearable and/or getting worse.

I swear that the system in Swift Current, with which I am very familiar, has many more administrative and clerical workers than medical workers. I assume that, because there is more public money available, the situation here in Calgary is even worse.

Medicare was a noble experiment but, in the end, it was killed by human nature. Political expediency being what it is, I see no hope of reviving it through a massive house cleaning which every insider, including even the nurses (who used to be professional people) would resist with the tenacity of wolverines. The only hope is to introduce the discipline of the free market, and the sooner the better.

My trackback for this was blocked

The left-wingers, union members, NDPers, and Liebranos who support the Canadian "health care" system have serious problems understanding what facts are. They label whatever they dream up a "fact". And then label anyone who does not accept the so-called "fact" a right-wing bigot, or a “cherrypicker”. Whereas, anyone with experience with, or knowledge of, the Canadian “health care” system knows that Kate’s example is representative of the system. I have representative examples of my own, and I know many people who have had even worse examples of the disasters the “health care” system metes out.

manul - you should talk to John’s refrigerator (that is John "the shlub in a basement, with a big mouth"). You could have a grand time making up stuff, oops “facts”…

Medicare was a noble experiment but, in the end, it was killed by human nature.

You have just described almost every left-wing ideology that has ever been thought up.

And I reject the false dichotomy of UK/CA system vs. US system. There's enough experience and documentation out there that honest people could find a system that balances the need for healthcare (which, along with low corporate taxes, improves European competitiveness vs. the US) and human nature.

A system that provides, say, a baseline standard for care and a public voucher which can be used to purchase private insurance. Multiple forms of private insurance to accomodate various needs and with various requirements. Paid for mainly by individual and/or goods taxes to keep corporate rates competitive (oh there go the lefties screaming about corporate welfare).

But every time I get to thinking like that, I have to remember that there's nowhere near the level of maturity and responsiblity out there to permit something like that to work.

Oh well.

Anyone know if Bob Rae is on a wait list for his heart surgery. Is he going into a regular hospital or that one Layton went to for his hernia.

You can't even buy a private MRI in this province. What are you on?

Nothing prevents private services from being set up, as long as they opt out of the public system. No one is without a story to tell about catastrophic health experiences in this province and this country. For every negative from a right-wing cherry-picker with an ideological ax to grind, there are a thousand positives that go unreported. You are not the only one with a story.

Yes Kate, I do think you are right in the assessment of a "non-profit" medical system. I am from the USA and a staunch republican and am in favor of a universal health system. What bothers me most is the number of people not able to access our health system -- Our "non-profits" will take away houses, assets and anything else they cling to for reimbursement -- especially in these "disparate economic times". My brother died, exactly for this reason -- not being able to pay for it for fear of the "Non-profit" taking away all of his family assets. What pained me most is thata hospital, board director and good friend of mine, told me "what else can we do to get them to pay up" -- taking all their assets. Oh well... If you have insurance, you'll be covered to the point that the companies won't take eveything you have. If not -- "tough luck" you "unfortunate 47 million" !!! To the rest of you, keep you head in the sand and hope you never are unemployed and not able to afford health insurance. That IS the bottom line Kate...

As a two time kidney transplant patient, with a 30 year journey through the Canadian Medical system under my belt, I feel uniquely qualified to make this statement.

Employees and supporters of the Canadian System are very comfortable with patient suffering.

The A'dam's of this country would rather someone die a horrible death on a two year wait list, than subject the monopoly to competition, or allow a private alternative. To them, a higher death toll and human suffering is simply a necessary sacrifice on the way to achieving their socialist dream.

Not a bit different, really, from the way Lenin, Stalin, Mao went about things. Death's were necessary there to achieve loftier goals.

The stories I could tell you. I leave you with this. Next time you are on a waiting list, go to Bangkok International for treatment. And don't give me that bull about not being able to afford it. 5 grand plus airfair for a hip trumps a 2 year waiting list every time.

The primary focus of all within the monoploy is to protect generous wages, working conditions, and most importantly, the right to be imcompetant and keep your job.

Just to "cherrypick" the one example that I've had personal knowledge of, a kid broke several bones in his foot. Dual-citizen child - mother took kid to Canadian doc, who either wouldn't or couldn't get the kid in for x-rays or MRIs to deal with aligning the bones until AFTER the bones had already set wrong. Kid had bone spurs bad enough to create bruises while walking/running, still does if they haven't surgically corrected it yet (I'm out of touch with that family now).
As a matter of fact, there are areas of the American Health Care system that don't function very well. They tend to be (in my personal experience) either a part of a University System, where the patients don't have a lot of choice where they go, and "emergency" rooms that must serve everyone regardless of if they can or can't pay (which, as a result, tend to be crowded with cases that shouldn't have gotten to 'emergency' status). I have had a bad doctor outside of this. And I promptly took myself and my money to another doctor who was much better. I have also been to an emergency room when it really was an emergency, was ushered into a smaller room for someone to listen to what exactly was wrong, and was treated immediately.
Similarly, I took my pet to a vet that was very close. I was unimpressed by their "exotics" vet and their honesty and am now going to a different vet that is farther away and costs more, but knows what they're doing.

A lady at work had her husband die because a nurse gave him too much morphine after an operation. She could not sue anyone for this wrongful death, as far as I know that nurse is still working at that hospital. Scary!

Manuel: Think about it for a minute ... "For every negative from a right-wing cherry-picker with an ideological ax to grind, there are a thousand positives that go unreported."

If there is "one" horror story for every thousand good stories (an unsubstantiated claim), then the system has failed utterly. Healthcare is not a debate about the taste of food ... that "one" negative example you so casually dismiss means a ruined life ... or a death ... or pain that didn't have to be ... and the mental anguish of loved ones. Are you suggesting that one horror story in every one thousand good experiences is justified? Apes could run a healthcare system with a ratio of one horror story to one thousand good ones.

You fail to recognize how completely unacceptable every singe one of the horror stories is because of the devastation that accompanies it. Yet, anyone with their ear to the ground knows that our system is loaded with stories of tragedy and suffering because of socialized healthcare.

Your dismissal of horror stories is truly callous.

Manuel would be second runer-up for asshole of the year!

the US system is more expensive per capita, less safe for patients, and produces poorer health outcomes.

Nice try, A'dam, but, totally bogus.

Try wrapping your mind around this thought, first off, all health care is rationed as it must be, no matter what or where the system. It is a commodity. The state rations it for you in Canada. You don't get an MRI on demand. Take your pick as to whom you want having control - consumer driven or state? Simple.

Secondly, as a participant in private care, paying my own premiums in the US, I have more of an incentive to not abuse my insurer, not run to ER's for common colds, abide by my physican's treatment plan or otherwise I'll be penalized as I should be. I'm also very happy to have choices that I can exercise it in deciding which private system I want to receive care.

Litigation drives US health care prices up, Bush attempted, but, was thwarted by the Dems in reforming our tort laws. No amount of common sense could prevent them for an alliance with the lawyer's lobby. They are idiots.

Defend socialized health care all you want, but, present the correct facts, and, not the left's de facto knee-jerk defense of their sacred cows. It is required to be a socialist in good standing to be ill-informed, don't question, and memorize the sacred dogma.

I know it's painful to consider alternatives from a life spent regurgitating liberal mantras, but, there are quite a number of us that don't want government caring for us beyond the simplest tasks like infrastructure maintenance, our common defense and I would have added post office, but, that should be privatized, Fed Ex and UPS are more cost efficient.

As Jefferson noted, he who govern least, governs best.

Paul, you use far too much common sense and reason for manuel. He operates on an emotional level, as does A'dam. They can be good for a laugh, but not serous intellectual exchange.

Kate: Cherrypicking? In that I "cherrypicked" our own family's experience? You are truly an idiot.

Insofar as you presume that your own anecdotal experience is representative of everyone else's realities, then yes, you are cherry-picking -- and you'd be an idiot to argue otherwise.

They provide "care" and that indeed is a commodity just like any other.

Actually, no, the government doesn't provide care (by and large, Canadian health care services are publicly funded, but privately delivered). What they provide is insurance, which is indeed a commodity, and one in which a single-payer monopsony proves more efficient for clients (i.e., patients) than a multi-payer system. Which is another reason why health (unlike insurance and care) isn't a mere commodity -- it's something that's in the public interest to maximize, even if to do so requires overriding (in this case, ineffective) free market principles through laws that support monopsony conditions (i.e., Medicare).

It's why we don't have shortages of dentists or veterinarians in the same small towns where hospitals are being closed and doctors can't be found.

Actually, there are dentist shortages in a number of provinces and many rural areas across Canada. Ditto for pharmacists, optometrists, and other health care professionals whose services are not covered under Medicare. Ditto too for veterinarians (google it if you don't believe me; arguing that there are dentists and vets in your town would, of course, be purely anecdotal). Think these shortages might be related to something other than the public/private funding debate, say, insufficient professional school funding/enrollment levels or a general preference among young professions to work in major urban centers rather than rural communities?

What really bother me about the Canadian health care system is its political attachment. The more political it has become the more it is controlled by political correctness. It's wrapped around this need for social justice rather timely health care.

So now the average person simply saying that we should maybe take a look its shortcomings causes the progressives to get defensive. The first defense is a complete denial that there are any problems or that more tax money is all that is needed. Next follows the usual accusation of being a neo-con, American worshipping, poor people hating, capitalist profiteer. When all citizens really want is to be assured that they are going to get care when they need it.

Most Canadians seem to want it publicly funded but I doubt they really care if the delivery is public or private or mixed. They just want access to doctors, specialists, diagnostics and surgery at a reasonable price. I think that we can have a publicly funded, privately delivered health care system that is more efficient for the same price we are paying now.

Look at the amount of tax money currently goes towards health care. At the very least it should be able to provide for the majority of common and emergency care. Perhaps we will discover that some care is unaffordable. In these areas the government may need to be honest about its limitations. Encourage people to buy health insurance coverage in those areas by making the premiums tax deductible.

There are many ways to improve health care. It is too bad that all new ideas are suppressed because it has become a sacred cow to the progressives. How can there be any improvements if discussion is not permitted?

Paul at 5:28

How silly of me. Of course the only other places one can find medical horror stories are...let me guess... Cuba and N Korea, right? Certainly not the good old free enterprise USofA.

penny, I'm sure the aristocratic Jefferson never had to deal with an HMO. Your ignorance of Canada is encyclopedic. Why bother trying.

@ A'dam - are you an economist? The problem with a monopsony (fi you want to define the Public Health care system that way) is that it results in an inefficient quantity purchased as compared to a competitive market.

As a doctor I can tell you that in our system people suffer constantly due to this.

In addition there are many medications for both cancers and auto-immunue diseases not covered by our system which are covered by both the priavte and public systems in the US.

Moreover our system results in worse outcomes in terms of mortality and morbidity for myocardial infarctions and cancer therapy compared to the US.

Penny: Secondly, as a participant in private care, paying my own premiums in the US, I have more of an incentive to not abuse my insurer, not run to ER's for common colds, abide by my physican's treatment plan or otherwise I'll be penalized as I should be.

Good for you. 47 million of your fellow citizens don't have the opportunity to practice such prudence and restraint, because they're uninsured. 47 million. What do you have to say to them? And please, don't try to (mis)characterize them all as people who choose not to purchase private insurance. Such people do exist, but the vast majority are either those with prior medical conditions that disqualify them from coverage, or those who genuinely can't afford it.

Litigation drives US health care prices up...

And why do patients litigate? Unsatisfactory quality of service, perhaps?

"The only participant who lacks a guaranteed return under this "not-for-loss" monopoly is the one paying the bill, the patient whose assets are involuntarily seized through taxation to keep the hulking, insatiable bovine alive and belching. The most powerful check and balance of all - the ability of the customer to refuse payment to protest inadequate service - has been removed from the equation."

Sage observation Kate. I lost my Mother in similar slip-shod one-tier fashon...misdiagnosed for months her once treatable cancer spread to untreatable as she lay in the living room neing treated for a skin rash...when things got critical the sate kindly offered her a warm bed to die in....on a Thanksgiving weekend where there were no staff doctors in duty.

Where do I get money back? Can I sue for compensation for gross systemic incompetence?...guess not...guess I'll have to settle for the seething contempt I feel for monolithic socialist public systems which protect the incompetent and celebrate mediocrity.

Manual -- Yes, that was a terrible plane crash with a couple hundred victims. But think of all the other thousand planes that didn't crash that day!

Manual: You are avoiding the point ... that our system has enormous shortcomings despite the assurances offered by those like yourself. I resent those like you who would take away our choices, while offering a substandard product.

You are offering ideology based healthcare; not results based healthcare ... and that is typical leftist fantasy based thinking. And worse, you are preaching to those of us who have suffered under the Canadian system. Again, typical leftist thinking ... in finding suffering necessary to keep the collective alive and well, no matter how badly it fails. Maintaining the collective becomes more important than actually improving individual lives.

I ask you ... who has the best healthcare system in the world then ... in your opinion? Who should we model our system on? Or, Manual, is ours already the best there is?

Why would a hospital ever provide quick emergency care? The best way to extort more dollars from the public teat is to offer poor service and put on a PR campaign that you don't have enough money. Politicians and many citizens eat this stuff up without any critical thought.

It has been noted that the left doesn't mind deaths as long as they further their cause. Unfortunately deaths from poor care in our health care system bolsters those already in the system. Poor care must equal lack of funding, you know. It couldn't possibly because of stupid incentives that cause doctors to focus on quantity over quality while nurses are promoted based on seniority rather than skill.

Zog, I had the opportunity to visit the HQ of the Calgary Health Region a couple of years ago. The building was so full of administrators that our meeting took place in a converted broom closet. Parking was impossible to find despite a massive lot. I was told by an individual working there that only a few years before (when Klein's government still kept spending to a minimum) that the building was almost empty. It seems that much of the increased spending on health care in the early 2000s was not spent on care but on administrators (who will never get fired for anything, except criticizing the current system). Until health care districts and administrators are held to some sort of standards that measure both care and spending levels, the system will not change. The free market may not be the best system to do this, but I have not yet heard anyone come up with an alternative.

And you know what? Hagel and his crew have been cramming down our throats how successful Saskatchewan is this year. How strong the economy.

With our house prices rising out of reach we are told that it is being driven up by Albertans coming to Saskatchewan to retire to take advantage of the $15 prescription plan and the $0 health care. Albertans who didn't pay one dime into it.

Fortunately, that's a lie too. At the same time, they are telling us "no money for hospitals this year, we just blew our $100 million wad on multiplexes and art galleries."

Putting lipstick on the pig doesnt change the fact that its still a pig.
I dont care what they do elsewhere, comparisons with other countries are doing nothing for us. we need a MADE IN CANADA solution.
The fact needs to be recognized far and wide that our health care system is badly broken.
Once one gets past that, then perhaps a rational discussion about solutions can begin.
Why not start with the premise that everyone who needs care will receive it when it is necessary.
Cut the waste!!!!
EG.,In my local hospital, they have a bandage specialist. So now i guess that even though nurses now go through more training, they are not taught how to apply a bandage.
I dont have the answers, but i know they are out there. All we need is the political courage in our Governments to do the right thing.

Langmann: Moreover our system results in worse outcomes in terms of mortality and morbidity for myocardial infarctions and cancer therapy compared to the US.

But it fares better in terms of (for example) colorectal cancer survival, kidney failure treatment, and kidney and liver transplant survival. We could go on and on like this indefinitely, trading "Yeah, but..." for every last health care outcome.

Paul: You fail to recognize how completely unacceptable every singe one of the horror stories is because of the devastation that accompanies it. Yet, anyone with their ear to the ground knows that our system is loaded with stories of tragedy and suffering because of socialized healthcare. Your dismissal of horror stories is truly callous.

Michael Moore's Sicko is also filled with horror stories. So do you therefore accept his argument on the basis of these anecdotes alone? Or do you find his film unbalanced and flawed? If so, why isn't Kate's argument, which also relies on a horror story, equally unbalanced and flawed?

I ask you...who has the best healthcare system in the world then...in your opinion? Who should we model our system on?

"Best" isn't the ideal way to characterize the question, but compared to many other countries, Canada's HC system is indeed relatively strong. Obviously, that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. I know what I like (e.g., Scandinavia's holistic view of health and greater focus on prevention; the quality of the US's physician training programs) and what I don't (e.g., the State's class-stratified insurance system). All systems and all countries have their share of horror stories; focusing on them exclusively only obscures rather than illuminates the debate.

I'm curious, Paul, what's your own opinion? You complain about the Canadian system; what would you like to see in its place?

We share our health care system with cuba norh korea and china, dubious company to be in! For the rest, with gov.t health care, have a private for profit system available, a reasonable alternative for those who decide to spend their money that way, surely an improvement in freedom of choice. Sad experience confirms that gov't monopoly control tends to produce an attitude that the service is for the providers not the consumers. Nevertheless there are bright lights and efficient caring service in some areas of our country despite our current method, e.g. cancer care in Ottawa which from our experience could not be better. By all means bring on the cleansing capitalist action of private fee paying care in addition to state provided care. Profit is not a 4 letter word.

I'll spare Kate the pain of being blunt as a brick and I'll take up the "cherrypicking" theme:

'manuel' missed the point and Paul went all wobbly ("how completely unacceptable..." - sometimes bad things do happen, Paul). It's this simple:

In. Canada. we. don't. have. a. choice.

As I commented in an earlier post, taking 'John' (Mr. 'they can pry universal access from my cold dead fingers')(paraphrasing) to task...

"You are objecting to taking personal responsibility. Others here are objecting to the denial of health services. I leave you to decide which is the morally defensible position."

It's that simple: people with ideological motives connive with one another to deny other people access to treatment that might save a life, or ease suffering. Such people have blood on their hands.

How ironic that my expatriate Canadian doctor, is treating his expatriate Canadian patient (me), in Florida!

He now owns his own clinic. He employs lots of people, and has an excellent reputation for fast expert service and is awash in happy customers. He charges some people cash, takes insurance from others and does pro bono work as he sees fit, like a free man! He is now very wealthy and philanthropic. A healthy side effect of a capitalist free economy unencumbered by the shackles of Socialism.

He told me that he didn’t take all the risk and money for education it took to be a doctor, only to become a career employee of the Government of Canada.

Canada needs to do this too. Quit looking to the Government to provide the solutions on this one. All it takes is one brave doctor to publicly open up shop and declare himself open for business. No waiting, no insurance accepted, cash on the barrelhead. Government de damned!

I think its time to question the authority. Is it yours or is it theirs?

Can you imagine the demand for this! Can you imagine how berserk the politicians and bureauweenies would go! Can you imagine the repercussions of the Government trying to shut the guy down!

Vive la Canada….Vive la Canada libre!

Here's an idea. Let those of us who want to opt out of the current system opt out and take our taxes with us. The rest of you who like the current system are welcome to stay in. It's called choice. In a free society surly everyone supports that. I can then be sure that I get what I pay for and the rest of you can be happy in your socialist utopia.

adam - I think you'll have to provide some proof for your assertions about the US health system; otherwise - you are talking a lot of hogwash. Remember, that Canadians (and others) go to the US for treatment - for a reason. They go for the commodity - of health care services.

adam -the Cdn gov't provides health care; don't nitpick/cherry pick words. The fact is - the services are funded by the gov't - and the problem is that the major part of the money goes to unionized staff no matter the quality of the care - which, as all socialist systems, dissipates to the lowest common denominator. There's no incentive to work hard in a socialist system; indeed, there's a lot of pressure NOT to work hard.

The key problem with Canadian health care is that its focus is on the well-being of the bureaucrats and the staff - not on the service of providing health care. Canadian health services are not privately delivered since there is no free competition. And monopsony is an incorrect term here; because consumer requirements are not from one source but multiple types: long term, short term, emergency etc - which require different responses. Our system is unable to deliver different responses.

orlin and adam - I've heard disputes about that 'urban myth' of 47 million uninsured in the US.The actual number is about 10 million. You are counted in this statistic if you are between jobs, if you are switching insurance companies; if you aren't a citizen (10 million); if you make a lot and don't purchase insurance etc. But, I'm sure you both will stick to the urban myth; it's a lot more fun.

Michael Moore's Sicko is also filled with horror stories.

Invoking Michael Moore, Hollywood's serial for profit provocateur, kind of dumbs down things, don't you think? The fatso's lack of personal responsibility for his own health is the core horror story. Let me guess, you saw it in a move so it must be true, whoo hoo, you are out of your league here. Get real.

@ A'dam, actually you have to look at the treatment data for cancers, not simply overall mortality. There are other factors involved in why CR cancer is higher in the US. When actually looking at outcomes from treatment in CRC there is no difference between Canada and the US.

However it remains to be seen if the increased use of CT scanning for virtual colonoscopy and Lung Ca will result in better mortality rates in the US.

If it does Canada has some catching up to do.

The US has an extensive public health care system that spends roughly $13,000 per person in that that system compared to $6500 per person in the private system.

If the entire country switched to the Public US system it could easily result in an increased cost of a trillion dollars...

As a former R.N. I would state that universal health care is a nice name for universal mediocrity and substandard care. My dogs get faster and better care!

Canada's health care system is filled with political, costly, pompous, useless administrators surrounded by a plethora of peripheral administrative positions with feel-good names but, equally as useless.

Unionized staff performs slipshod work but demands top-notch wages. Heaven forbid they must do a task which is not in their job description. Gone are the days when nurses and medical staff go out of their way to provide quality and empathetic care as I was trained to do.

Doctors are overworked and underpaid. Most prefer to work in larger centers which are well-funded and well-staffed. I do not blame them for not wanting to work in Podunk, Sask. where the veterinarian has better equipment.

Health care must be run as a business and be a two-tier entity. Get rid of the fat, the fat cats, and the costly do-nothing, touchy feely positions. I would love to see health care without unions, but I think that will never happen. Competition and patient choice will determine which facility will be profitable and which will not.

The result will be an effective, efficient system forced to operate without constant increase in taxpayer dollars and government bail-outs. The public system will be forced to become efficient and caring, or lose clientele.

Sadly, none of our elected officials has the balls to implement the required changes.

The Canadian government collects and spends in various ways roughly $17,000 per year taxpayer in health care related expenses. That’s $34,000 in a two working person household. I read that somewhere over at the Fraser Institute web site some time back.

My wife and I pay Medicare tax here ($2000 yr. ?) in the US, in addition to whatever we pay for health insurance. My yearly premiums for both of us are $12,500. US.

The US system is not without its glaring flaws either. I hate the way private insurers can just deny coverage because of previous health issues. There’s something inherently wrong with that.

Yet in the US, if you are destitute or are uninsured, emergency care is provided by numerous public and private entities. In other words we already have universal heath care.

One more thing about this statistic of uninsured people. As an employer I offer to pick up 2/3 of the premium in our work plan. I have offered this to all employees and their contribution would be about $2400 yr. for the whole family.

I have had employees with children not sign up for the plan because they just don’t want it. Some say that they can’t afford it (although they still drink and smoke) but yet they are very well paid. These people qualify in surveys as uninsured and thereby bias those numbers badly.

Why not allow 'for profit' medical care? If current government system is better than 'for profit' medical care, then the 'for profit' medical care system will quickly be wiped out be the superior government run system. or maybe not.

People should question any laws or regulations that gives the government a monopoly on anything normally done by the private sector.

Tenebris nailed it dead center. I'm going to kick the corpse now.

You don't have a right to medical care. Really!

What you have at the moment is the right to stand in line and wait for the government paid system to get around to you. But you need a service which the government does not provide, or if the waiting list is too long, you have no right to it and no opportunity buy it privately.

Nice eh?

I had a similar experience with my Dad. Having chronic emphysema, he was sent to Saskatoon (3 hr vibrating gurney ride). After spending a few nights at University Hospital, they deemed him not sick enough to occupy a bed. And this is at 11 at night. So my mom and I took him to a local motel to spend the night. Bedridden and clearly needing nursing assistance. Next day another fun ride back to small town hospital with nurses who actually give a damn.

Here's another. My wife was 13 weeks pregnant, goes into hospital with abdominal pain. On a Sunday night. Ob-gyn decides it's appendicitis. Next day, sans-appendix, and still in pain, they do an ultrasound (do these technicians keep bankers hours?) Oops, it's a miscarriage. Now she has to recover from two procedures.

And don't get me started on waiting lists. I could go on and on, just from folks I know personally.

The problem is that without competition, there's no incentive to do a better job. The system is top-heavy with management, and no accountability.

Yet again this thread encapsulates the tactics of the extreme left in holding Canadians hostage to a failing system. Executive summary? Oooh, we don't want be like those Americans do we?

Most would accept some "real world" compromise (let's see what they're doing in France, Germany, Sweden) but Canada is so far out in left field that Medicare is clearly a secular religion for the NDP.

A'adam: I'd like to see a blended system, like that in England, but much better funded. That means multiple tiers, from private to social to blended. Canada is the only developed country on earth that has an almost complete public system. What a bunch of idiots.

We have far deeper pockets than the Brits, so we could produce a much more viable public/private system. Only ideology holds us back.

A big problem occurs in small markets like Saskatchewan's. Here we likely couldn't offer much of the "private" sector options simply because the client base is too small. That would mean a subsidized "private" system. Let me explain.

One idea that has been floated is that the government provide insurance along with private companies, but that the actual delivery be run only through the private sector. The Sask government already runs scores of businesses, so why not health insurance. That would mean universal healthcare ... with consumer choice and the resulting efficiencies as a result. Everyone would have access to private run facilities, of their choice. Healthcare facilities would then have to compete for our business, resulting in better care.

We do it with vehicle insurance; it'd be a similar model just much more complex.

The down side is the death grip that the unions have on healthcare. What are now publicly run facilities would become privatized ... and with the current unionized system being what it is, not even the private sector could run much better; least of all turn a profit. There'd have to be a gutting of current contracts ... and that could result in chaos if it wasn’t handled delicately.

After all, if it takes one person to do a job in a private setting that normally takes 3 in the public sector to do ... a lot of people would need to get their walking papers.

And there is the rub ... fat, bureaucratic, unionized systems would need to be destroyed. We could do so quickly, or over time.

As far as horror stories ... they exist in all systems, but after being a victim here, and being involved with both the American and Canadian systems, my informal analysis is that we offer incredibly substandard care in Canada compared to the USA. My friends and relatives in the USA, who are consumers and employees of the USA system, can’t even comprehend the stories I share with them. Yes, it’s an unscholarly conclusion I make, but after having hundreds of American clients, and relatives with which I’ve swapped stories … Canada wins big time in the horror category, especially when it comes to diagnostics and basic procedures. Canada is in the stone age compared to what my American contacts take for granted.

"I'd like to see a blended system, like that in England, but much better funded. That means multiple tiers, from private to social to blended. Canada is the only developed country on earth that has an almost complete public system. What a bunch of idiots..."The down side is the death grip that the unions have on healthcare. What are now publicly run facilities would become privatized ... and with the current unionized system being what it is, not even the private sector could run much better; least of all turn a profit. There'd have to be a gutting of current contracts ... and that could result in chaos if it wasn’t handled delicately.

After all, if it takes one person to do a job in a private setting that normally takes 3 in the public sector to do ... a lot of people would need to get their walking papers.

And there is the rub ... fat, bureaucratic, unionized systems would need to be destroyed. We could do so quickly, or over time..."

You've pretty well nailed it Paul!

"penny, I'm sure the aristocratic Jefferson never had to deal with an HMO. Your ignorance of Canada is encyclopedic. Why bother trying."
manuel at August 19, 2007 6:11 PM

Well, well, well, it looks like manuel is trying to take the asshole of the year away from a'dam. To boot he is even dissing penny about not knowing anything about the Canadian Health care system, as if he has ever used another system.

It was brought up by another commentor and it is something I've been saying for a long time: There are other health care models besides the evil empire. Look before you yap and as a worker in both US and Canadian systems, I can speak with a bit more authority than a lot. Deal with it.

the stupidity of the lefties in here is unbelievable

My doctor and I had a conversation about this topic of mediocrity in the medical system. He told me that he and some other doctors friend have decided to remain in Canada only because they didn't want to uproot their families since they quite liked their quality of live here on the West Coast of Canada.

He stated that some doctors he knows don't even consider moving to the US because Canada is a great place to be mediocre.

He is a very good doctor even though he loathes the system under which he must work.

Another Doctor friend of mine who is a very talent laproscopic surgeon did move to Oregon because she said she simply couldn't get enough operating room time to keep her skills up. There was no lack of work, but no venue to work in due to no money for the operating rooms. Lots of money for the administration and unionized fat cats though.

It is a system in advanced decay. The only question is ... what will it take to bury it.

I will add that there are many other grand socialist and social engineering schemes that need to be cremated along with it.

The only thing you need to remember is this:
In Saskatchewan you are not allowed to spend your after tax income on services that are perfectly legal in other provinces and south of the border. I would bet that our provincial government could buy every Saskatchewan citizen cradle to grave private heath care for less money than they spend now. But choice only counts when you want an abortion, not an MRI.

For whomever was the Lefty retard HMO hater up above, I have good news. OHIP is quietly moving to an HMO-style payment scheme for family docs.

In the fee-for-service model it is in the physician's financial interest to see as many people as possible. visits = money.

In the HMO model the physician gets paid based on the number of people in his/her practice. They contract out the care for a certain population, basically. That means it is in their best interest NOT to see you, because they've already been paid. visits = work but not money.

Are we having fun yet?

Has anyone commented on the system that is already funded by the American taxpayer, Medicare?

What a nightmare! My personal theory is that the overhead required to receive Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement from the government (the largest payer of healthcare) is part of the reason we see the explosion of healthcare costs in the US. For every doctor at a hospital/admitting to a hospital, there are at least FIVE clerical workers, pushing paperwork to get the bill paid -- not by the patient, but by the payer. There are elaborate IT systems developed and implemented to keep up with the paperwork. The Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates in no way resemble the actual cost to deliver service, but are a number dreamed up by a bureaucrat reflecting what the government would LIKE to pay. THEN, the insurance companies all set their reimbursement rates relative to what the Medicare rates are, %120, %115, etc.

The US government already has its ham-fisted, pork-fed grip on the US Health Care economy and if you think I want to give them more of my family's money to they can create another re-distribution system with more crass inefficiency you are sorely mistaken.

Kate,

My condolences on the ill treatment your mother received from the medical system. I'm sure that having a loving family made up for it and eased her passing, however.

Sean

Tex canuck... from what I've read of your postings, you can't speak with authority about anything.

Waitaminute.

Wasn't Brian Postl, the Libs commisar of waitlists supposed to come up with some kind of solution -- some kind of National Waiting List, or something?

You know, like Safeway nationalizing their checkout lines to get faster service locally. That way your milk can go past the expiry date and the kid on the frickin' milk carton can collect CPP while you wait.

Canadian healthcare - the wardrobe malfunction for leftist tits.

manuel - you are getting real close to winning of the A**hole of the year award.
Do you preview any of the twaddle you dump here?

Quite a contest- manuel vs A’dam. And the big wiener is...

Good point about the socialists. Look at the Deputy Minister of Health. Not a shred of prior experience in the delivery of health care services, yet he makes over $300,000 a year simply for being in the role.

If that isn't blatent cronyism and patronage, what is? The government would have found a far more competent and experienced individual simply by placing the names of all health care workers in Saskatchewan into a hat, and drawing one at random.

"It's that simple: people with ideological motives connive with one another to deny other people access to treatment that might save a life, or ease suffering. Such people have blood on their hands."

Brilliantly put Tenebris.

"But it fares better in terms of (for example) kidney and liver transplant survival"

A'dam you are such a dumb F**K. I just got back from Pakistan in December where I got a kidney transplant not on offer here in Canada. Good old Canada offered me 8 years on dialysis, and a moral lecture that I would die from Aids if I went abroad. In other words, death on a waiting list was their recommendation.

I chose to not to die on a waiting list, and spent 40K of my own money to get the problems solved. Guess what A'dam, they do more transplants in one month in Pakistan than they do in a year in Canada. Their pretty good at it too.

Canada may lead in kidney transplantation success, too bad they can't offer you the surgery.

Have none of you lefties yet noticed you've been arguing in large part with health care professionals working in the system? (Or who used to?)

When I was a kid we had a well-staffed hospital in our small town of 350. With doctors who stayed in practice for year . That changed within 10 years of socialized medicine. Now it's a revolving door of the foreign-trained, when you can get them at all.

It ain't coincidence.

And Manuel has a previous history here. Under a different name, that particular one trick pony derided farmers for receiving government subsidies.

It appears there's one rule for farmers, another for Manuel.

I have a friend who lives in the US, is in his late 50's, smoker, overweight, bad lifestyle choices. Uninsured. He spent two weeks on a ventilator earlier this year and then received open heart surgery and valve replacements. He'll be paying for it for the rest of his life.

As well he should. He's alive.

It happened because, with over 10K a month in gross revenues, he neglected his dental care. The resulting absess infected his heart.

That's the other side of choice, people. People who are free to choose from available options are also free to make stupid decisions and suffer for it.

What we don't have here is choice for the people who make the good ones.

My mother hadn't been to a doctor since the mid 1960's. Sask Health hadn't spent a penny on her for nearly 40 years. Thousands upon thousands had been paid into the tax system on her behalf up until the day she needed that care.

When she needed it, she didn't get it and there was nowhere else to take her.

That's the bottom line.

There was nowhere else to take her.

Langmann: The US has an extensive public health care system that spends roughly $13,000 per person in that that system compared to $6500 per person in the private system. If the entire country switched to the Public US system it could easily result in an increased cost of a trillion dollars...

I read your own blog post on the US numbers, Langmann. The problem is that you're assuming that all patients are the same, and that the difference between the cost per person of the public and private systems is due primarily to administrative costs. Not so -- the public system is populated disproportionately by the elderly, the poor, those who pre-existing (and disqualifying) medical conditions -- i.e., groups with poorer health and greater (and often more expensive) health care needs. Estimating total cost by multiple "cost per person in public system" by "total number of people in the public and private systems" is hugely over-simplistic and utterly unjustifiable.

ET: They go for the commodity - of health care services.

I never said health care wasn't a commodity. In any case, what evidence would you like to see specifically?

I've heard disputes about that 'urban myth' of 47 million uninsured in the US.The actual number is about 10 million.

Evidence please. Or else hogwash.

Penny: Let me guess, you saw it in a move [sic] so it must be true, whoo hoo, you are out of your league here. Get real.

My goodness, Penny, you truly are daft. My point was that relying on anecdotal horror stories to make your case -- which is what both Michael Moore in Sicko and Kate here did, only from opposite ends of the debate -- is a flawed and unconvincing strategy. If Michael Moore is a "provocateur" for doing so, why isn't Kate?

Paul: I'd like to see a blended system, like that in England, but much better funded.

Really? But the vast majority of the English system is the NHS, which is truly socialized medicine (both financing and delivery are public). The private health care sector is even smaller than in Canada (20% v. 30%); like Canada, 2/3 is provided by employers, with the remainder out-of-pocket. What's different is that private insurance covers more services there than here -- and already, there are class and geographic divides, with nearly 1/4th of social class I citizens but less than 1/20th of social class IV citizens, and 1/5th of greater Londoners but less than 1/20th of those in Northern England, carrying supplementary private insurance. Waiting lists and occasional horror stories are realities here too.

Canada is the only developed country on earth that has an almost complete public system.

When talking about public v. private in Medicare, it's important to distinguish between financing and delivery. And actually, about 30 percent of Canadian health care is privately financed (about average, even slightly above average, among OECD nations), while almost all of Canadian health care delivery is privately operated. Where Canada is unique is in its restriction of the financing of "essential" hospital and physician services to public insurance (Medicare).

One idea that has been floated is that the government provide insurance along with private companies, but that the actual delivery be run only through the private sector. The Sask government already runs scores of businesses, so why not health insurance.

Again, financing v. delivery. The Sask gov't already provides health insurance (public financing), and the majority of health care providers are already private for-profit actors (private delivery; most hospitals are private not-for-profit operations, while only a small percentage of physicians are publicly salaried employees). The crux of the Medicare debate is on the funding side. The only innovation in your proposal is that private insurance companies be allowed to compete to finance services, with the public insurance scheme (Medicare) only one of several equal players. That would be getting close to the US system, which costs about twice as much per capita, with arguably marginal benefits in some areas, but far from all.

The down side is the death grip that the unions have on healthcare. What are now publicly run facilities would become privatized ... and with the current unionized system being what it is, not even the private sector could run much better; least of all turn a profit. There'd have to be a gutting of current contracts ... and that could result in chaos if it wasn’t handled delicately. After all, if it takes one person to do a job in a private setting that normally takes 3 in the public sector to do ... a lot of people would need to get their walking papers. And there is the rub ... fat, bureaucratic, unionized systems would need to be destroyed. We could do so quickly, or over time.

I presume you're referring to the bloated Canadian health care administration. What makes you think a privatized health care bureaucracy would be less expensive?

@A'dam: What you are missing about Kate's argument is that she wants to be able to choose where she spends her money and how.

Under our system she cannot do it.

What's the sin in her being able to?

Everyone has bad stories both north and south of the border, I'll be the first to admit it.

If Michael Moore is a "provocateur" for doing so, why isn't Kate?

Could it be that there is no repeated financial reward for Kate.

First I'm sorry to hear about your Mother's treatment.

Second, my Mother came from a family of about 12 kids in the Prince Albert area.

She moved to Alberta in the 60s. She had a heart attack in about 1993, survived, and had excellent care in our system.

She was alert, mobile and lived at home with my brother until 2 yrs ago, when she finally had to move to a home.
She died last Sept at the age of 98 and was the last one of the family to go.

To me, the interesting part is that only her and one of her brothers moved to Alberta, and they were the last two living members out of the 12 kids.

The other 10 stayed in Sask all their lives and all died many years ago.

One of the biggest problems is that they system works for the government not the patient. The government decides the funding levels, the number and size of hospitals, which services will be provided, which treatments we are allowed to have etc. The only thing they do not have is any legal requirement to deliver services that we thought we were paying for. The taxpayers just pays taxes without getting this guarantee of service levels. The helpless and powerless patient is a captive to the resulting rationed care.
Somehow there has to be a way for health care to be responsible to the patients rather the government. Where is the fairness in paying 30-50% of your income in taxes and then being denied timely services when you need it? If government can not guarantee adequate service levels then they should not have the right to take our money. At the very least government should be upfront about what they can provide and when. Then offer alternatives for what they can not provide.

"If Michael Moore is a "provocateur" for doing so, why isn't Kate?"

I'm not lying.

And considering that I'm speaking of my family's personal experience, you've been treading on ice as thin as it gets.

He's a disdainful little hater, Kate. Your comment about who he's talking to went past him at mach two.

I've worked in both American and Canadian systems. I, like you, have lost a couple of relatives before their time to piss poor care in Canada. I took my professional degree (MSc PT) in New York, I worked in PT in Toronto, New York, Arizona.

Doesn't seem to impress these morons. I'd say compare the quality of physiotherapy care in a private clinic to an OHIP or hospital clinic, but the trollocracy would just quote some idiot "study".

They aren't here to learn or convince, they are here to hurt and irritate. F--- 'em.

So who is A'dam?

Ray Romanow?

Joe, I believe that is Roy Romanow because we all know everbody loves Raymond ;-)

Ray Romanow hey I meant Roy Romanow - same commie though.

A'dam also missed my point of the overhead on the HOSPITAL/CLINIC side, which counts as a part of the cost of care, is created to comply with GOVERNMENT regulations to qualify for Medicare reimbursement and the insurance companies hang like leeches off that system.

Wouldn't everyone love to plow that money into patient care, perhaps even preventative care?

A'adam: Sources please! You are using actual numbers, so you'd better provide actual source documents ... not wiki.

I'm amazed Ottawa hasn't declared the West to be a public health care jurisdiction and the East to be a two-tiered system yet. The truth is a socialist system, as in our health care, will never provide adequate care for Canadians because socialism has never worked and never will. Unfortunately, the nutjobs socialists in Parliament are too stupid to acknowledge this truth and move towards a better system; they would rather have Canadians waiting months in pain for treatments, which they could easily and quickly acquire under the American Health system. I'm sure there is a compromise between the Canadian and American health systems that could be reached if the socialist nutjobs had an ounce of compassion in them....which they don't, and that may be the real problem right there.

Paul: Sources please!

- On public v. private mix in UK v. Canada: CIHI website; OECD Fact Book 2005.
- On class & geo divides in UK: Doyle & Bull (2000), "Role of private sector in UK healthcare system," BMJ 321(7260): 563-565.

There is another whole line of arguement neglected in this debate:the University and public cost of training doctors, nurses, and others-it is highly subsidized despite the costs they may personally carry upon graduation. And given the government guaranteed salaries of these individuals, most will seek lifestyle choices. Doctors are underpaid relative to their workload and lifestyle wishes, but they are certainly not underpaid. And much like a teacher, the more money they/you request from the public, the more demands, no matter how sperfluous, we will make. Like going to Emergency with a "sniffle."

Perhaps,if a doctor or nurse wishes to train with public money, then they should be placed in geographic areeas that need them-given the current status quo of Canadaian Universal health care. Indeed, the very rich will have money to train and carry on with lifestyle choices; however, in a system with choice, I will avoid them if they are poor in their vocation.

Money is important, but individuals either train for the professional aspect of healthcare or the lifestyle aspect, and I know alot of doctors who are more interested in their lifestyle than the professional aspect of healthcare. I live in the Banff-Canmore-Cochrane corridor where lifestyles are at a premium, and there are lots of doctors and nurses here that I think lack professionalism and /or talent with regard to patient care.

Ultimately, I want more choice in healthcare.

Tory policies are like an elephant dancing in a flock of chickens. It's great if you're the elephant.

Dr.Day, incoming President of the CMA is proposing a change in funding for health care facilities: they get funded based on the numbers of patients treated. A positive step in the right direction.

Under the current system of block funding, a facility gets funds based on annual budgets regardless of the amount of work done. This results in a patient being a liability, "costs money", and needs to be exited ASAP because there is no incentive to do otherwise.

With Dr.Day's proposed funding, the patient is an asset, makes money for the facility and needs to be treated properly because patients can go elsewhere. This creates a competitive situation between facilities based on patient mobility, increases pride of ownership with facility providers and lowers costs because of the incentive to be more efficient.

Of course the unions and naysayers of anything but what we have now are lambasting it as not workable. Go figure. Obviously someone is benefiting from the status quo - who are they and why are they insisting this situation continue at our expense?

When comparing the US and UK healthcare systems, the nice thing about British healthcare is that it is free and won't bankrupt you, the bad part of course is that you will likely die.
The survival rates are quite telling.
Too bad the leftards care more about politics than the welfare of the patients. If they did actually care, they would look at other systems like Singapore's and others that give better results.
Instead anytime anyone mentions doing anything other than throwing more money at it, they derail the conversation by ranting about US healthcare and George Bush.
So how about it leftards, if you really care, why not prove it by taking a deep breath and looking at the myriad of systems that produce better results than our system?
Do it for the children.
Or is it just cheap politics that motivate you?

Stan, the retards are here to piss you off and they'll say ANYTHING to do that. They have no alternatives because they don't understand the problem. They don't even -want- to understand the problem.

What they want is to hurt you. Because they lack the guts God gave a snail, they try to hurt you nice and safe on the Internet.

Frankly I have better things to do than subject my eyeballs to their spewings.