I had a young friend who worked hard to become an excellent laproscopic surgeon. By the time she was thirty years old and after trying to function in Vancouver's Medicare system for a couple of years after getting her badge, she gave up and moved to the USA. She has been down there for ten years now and would not come back.

We idiots paid much of her training and we will get no return on that investment. Anyone else have a story like that?

I asked why she went. Her answer. "The rationing of operating room time meant that she would not get enough work to keep up my skill level and I would become mediocre. I discussed this doctor friend with my family doctor. He said Canada is a great place to be mediocre. He stays because he has a young family and likes the Vancouver Island life style. He take a lot of time off and says because there is no reward to working yourself too hard in this system. He is not a greedy man and he has no financial problems. I like him.

Americans ... don't let the idiot you have in the white house get what he wants because I assure you, it's not what YOU want.

here is the debate boiled down:

if you got lots of cash and proportionate to the level of care required, private health care is your dream.

if you're at the low end of the earnings bell curve or face crushing catastrophic illness you want universal health care.

pick one.

you can only pick one and you have to stay with it for your natural life. (which may end prematurely if payment of your health care is impeded)

why do SDA regulars consistently harp (as in harper) for private paid health care? why is that? (hint: if you know where to look you can get it anyway so quitcherbitchin).

> if you're at the low end of the earnings bell
> curve or face crushing catastrophic illness you
> want universal health care

Try having a health condition that doesn't look good on the actuarial tables. I have a congenitally corrected transposition of the great blood vessels. The median age at death for those with my heart condition is age forty.

I'm forty.

Guess who wants to sell me health and or life insurance?

Pardon me for being a selfish SOB, but I would like to have SOME health coverage.

"why do SDA regulars consistently harp (as in harper) for private paid health care? why is that? (hint: if you know where to look you can get it anyway so quitcherbitchin).

Posted by: curious_george at September 16, 2009 10:43 PM "

Not curious....go take your leftard bitchin to Kos or Huffie. If you had one brain cell of comprehension,you would know SDA'ers bitch for BOTH public and private health care(two-tier,as you scare mongers like to call it).And i guess you would like to travel to Fiji for private care,cause if the Owe gets his way,you sure as hell aren't going across the border to get it!And as to your snooty "pick one",we can't,thanks to socialists like you and eugenics Tommy.

HUH??? We train doctors in Canada??? Really?? The last canadian trained doctors in my home town was in the early 60's or so I have been told. Since then no such luck. Which makes me ask why we are not training more doctors. With perks to stay in country. IMHO

Sean:

which side of the 49th are you on?

please elaborate.

signed, er, 'curious_socialist'

80% of Dr's that Graduate from Canadian schools move to the US. Thats because they (like me and most of you) like the money and the freedom.

I read a poll somewhere (sorry I don't recollect where) that 55% of America Dr's say they will stop practicing if the obamacare goes through.

When my father went to Korea he was there to kill the commies not hug them. The only difference between communism and socialism is the spelling .

Justhinkin, I like to call it 32 million tier medicare. You know, a system that is geared toward the benefit of the citizen not the state.

Who is John Gault?

Free, 12:02 post. You got that right.

You don't need 'lots of cash' to afford private health care. Even in the US, with a fairly bunged up system that has serious problems with defensive medicine, 90% of the population have health insurance. The 10% that don't include millions of people with incomes over $100,000 (they can pay with cash), millions of people under 25 (they don't think they need it), millions who qualify for medicare and haven't applied, and millions of 'undocumented persons of indeterminite origin'. There are very, very few Americans who fall into gap between medicare coverage and the ability to pay their own way. And there's lots of ways to get them access that don't require a massive reforming of their system into a Frankenstein's monster of a hybrid Canadian / British system.

I get about 2 noninsured patients a night in this Canadian ED. Most are drug abusers but some are "residents". I am curious what the Canadian numbers are, it would not suprise me if it were near 10%.

If people knew our numbers maybe things wouldn't sound do scary southwards.

Then there are the hundreds with no GP...

@FREE there is no way 80% of my class is practising in the US.

madmaxxx: "Which makes me ask why we are not training more doctors?"

The answer in Ontario is: BOB RAE. He thought we were training way too many doctors and put a limit on the number of doctors we could train, despite the fact that the Baby Boomer cohort was speeding down the track.

DUH.

Beautiful quote from Atlas Shrugged, the publication of which predates Cdn socialist medicine. If I remember Rand's book "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" correctly, she has quotes from Saskatchewan doctors during their strike when Douglas was first implementing his ugly ideas.

The pervasive of brainwashing about how good our system is truly is unbelievable. Every single one of has personal experience and family members with horror stories. Yet, the mere mention of the only true solution to all these horrors - allowing private care and patient-centered competition - shocks/appalls/offends most Canadians.

Steyn has the most perceptive view of the implications (outside of the obvious health ones) - no election will ever be fought on anything but left-wing terms again. I hope he is wrong in his certainty that this will go through.

Who cares if half the doctors quit in the US?

All those pimps, ho's and child molestors that are losing their jobs at ACORN could find new jobs in President Obunghole's new health care plan.

To a Malthusian statist like Douglas, the only purpose for a brain surgeon in a state-run system is to lobotomize trouble makers and other wrong types of people, or to inadvertently euthanize those straining the public health systems with their serious medical problems.

You needn't pay top salaries hiring dedicated professionals for this type of state subsidized 'brain work', Dr. Nick Riviera will do nicely.

http://www.myspace.com/hiii_everybody

Model the French system, in the USA and CANADA! It's not hard to do, and they are #1 in the world.

To all the Doctors who accept Canadian taxpayers dollars for training and then promptly move to the USA.

GOODBYE and don't come back you greedy SOBs!

The left are always looking for their Sugar Daddy. That's the beginning and end of it.

And there are always people like Tommy (Not Dead Enough) Douglas who will take advantage of the left's lack of self-confidence and self-respect to impose their particular vision of utopia.

The left's Golden Calf is a Sugar Daddy. All the Sugar Daddy demands in return is that everyone bow to their imperfect power.

It's a forgery of perfect power. A make believe world.

Hey, "not stirred enough";

It's not greed when you want to be paid what your worth, it's greed when you want alot of something, but don't think you should pay for it.

Oh and the 20% who don't move south are the ones that are on the low end marks wise.

If you want a doctor who just barely passed just look for one in Canuckistan.

Even my own doctor used to be a computer engineer but the money was better working for government hand-outs, so he squeaked by at med school.

The plural of anecdotes is not data.

View the chart, then begin the hand waving.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_systems#Cross-country_comparisons

"Its 2007 study found that, although the U.S. system is the most expensive, it consistently underperforms compared to the other countries. Two differences between the U.S. and the other countries in the study is that the U.S. is the only country without universal health insurance coverage, and the highest cost of malpractice insurance of any nation in the study."

It looks like something is wrong with this private run health care system. Anyone fathom a guess?

The perpetual myth is that collectively you can afford more (health care) with total disregard for the inefficiency of such arrangement. The population of a country can not only afford health care according to it's wealth, but also to a financial management practices. Universal health care policy defenders are attached to their delusional ideas, trying to fit everything into one concept and allocating resources just to sustain the system for the sake of the system.
I don't know why the left has problem with Harper on this issue, he is the silent patron of parasitic bureaucratic hoards.

Mike G.

You've made an interesting point. I'd like to ask the question; how is the worth of a person's vocation/profession decided anyways? Is it; years of formal education plus years of on the job training? Or is it how many brain jobs they've done?

Bill Gates did 4 years post secondary and 1 year on the job; should he make leass than a doctor?

Duh, the market decides. Well, in a free country...

"Its 2007 study found that, although the U.S. system is the most expensive,..."

Did they include the cost of research and developement, of which Canada rides on the coattails?

Did they include the cost of collecting taxes to maintain a public monstrosity?

"...it consistently underperforms compared to the other countries

It's always handy to be able to pick and choose what parts to compare.

re: ol hoss

You'd like me to do all your research for you? Or are you answering my question with a question(s)?

So, you are refuting my claims with what? Nothing? Show me some data then that shows the US system is cheaper and better than the canadian system. You know, longer life span, less percentage of GDP, etc, etc. Those silly things like 'facts'. I'll wait. And if you prove me wrong, I'll concede your point.

If people decide not to buy Microsoft products, than Bill Gates will make less than a doctor.

I would say that , education has something to do with it, the type of work being done, how well it's done, and the market for it. I don't think that it's an absolute that one of the three will determine the value of a service, although they do affect each other. Shades of gray.

But I don't think that the gov't should determine it, that's for sure.

Everybody knows the best field Doctors in the world are Cuban. A salary of $50 a month and they still do their job. Makes American ones look pretty bad by comparison.

Really interesting article on what's wrong with health care - regardless of whether it's Canada, the US, Europe - in the September Atlantic. You can read it online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care

Perhaps the story is apocryphal, but I read somewhere once that in ancient China, doctors were paid when their patients were well. If a patient got sick, he stopped paying until the doctor cured him. Now, doctors get paid when we're sick; isn't it in their financial interest to keep us sick?

ol hoss,

How does the market decide in America? The AMA controls the whole delivery process. If you really think about the AMA is about as socialist as an association gets. It's a Union that controls the entire process A to Z. If a doctor doesn't belong then they don't practice.

No doubt the Cuban concentration camps are better than the AMA.

ol hoss-
None of the three doctors that my family members normally see are members of the AMA.

ol hoss-
None of the three doctors that my family members normally see are members of the AMA. All are board certified for medical practice in the State where we reside.

Ah a poll by the geniuses at IBD, the same folks who thought Stephen Hawking was an American.

Hopefully they had somebody check their work, because every other poll, including the ones by the most prestigious medical journals on the planet, peg support for a public/private option at 73%.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2009/September/15/Doctors.aspx

But don't let the facts get in the way of your craziness.

Not Stirred Enough, people who do something for nothing are called charities. They give of themselves for the love of man or the Glory of God, what have you. They are called "superstitious" or spat upon or ignored by leftists who wouldn't be caught dead rolling up their sleeves for the betterment of others unless there was a camera on them. As for doctors who trained for years doing difficult and dirty work, give them a proper salary. They make sure people don't die. In the cost/benefit analysis run of things, it's worth it.

Tommy Douglas was an interesting character but as is typical of the left...did not understand the law of unintended consequences. If you read up on the man and his policies, you may be surprised to find that every piece of coddling give-away he proposed was always contingent upon a 'balanced budget'. He is on record in his personal letters that if we should always work to a budget and NEVER even consider going into deficit spending.

In other words, as it applies to a socialized medical plan....the plan was there to help only in so far as the responsibility for an individual's health and well being was still up to that individual.

But if anyone has read the American health plan overhaul some of those on the left might be in for a huge surprise - as if you are an obese diabetic, you may find that further treatment may be contingent upon the Fatassian losing weight and eating properly. Smokers? Wow! Are you in for a huge surprise when you try to get treatment that is deemed 'nicotine related'. Back of the line does not even begin to cover the hoops you are going to have to jump through.