“Canadians don’t mind waiting for elective care all that much, so long as the rich Canadian and the poor Canadian have to wait about the same amount of time.”

Idiot. Perhaps he would like to wait. Someone should tell him to stick his socialist BS up his nose.

“Canadians don’t mind waiting for elective care all that much, so long as the rich Canadian and the poor Canadian have to wait about the same amount of time.”
never have I seen so much crap in one statement in a long time. As we all know(except for lefturds),the rich sure as hell DO NOT wait 390 days for elective surgery. And what the hell is "about" the same time? I consider a 2 day difference wrong,but maybe this clown thinks 1 year is great.

except some of the "more equal" Canadians like Jean Chretien who used a government jet to fly down to the Mayo clinic for treatment instead of waiting in line here, Or Belinduh Stronach who at least used her won jet and money to jump the queue and get her cancer treatment without waiting.

What a coincidence . . . both Liberals, both queue jumpers.

What was the story about the dog in the manger?

"'Canadians don’t mind waiting for elective care all that much, so long as the rich Canadian and the poor Canadian have to wait about the same amount of time.' In that one sentence, Marcus Davies laid out the ethical basis of Canada’s health-care system."

But, er, if rich Canadians do choose to opt for private care, doesn't that shorten the wait time for those who cannot by reducing the numbers of people in the line-up?

Just so, JJM.
Not only would that shorten the wait time, but it would also employ more people in field of diagnostic medicine, plus lengthen the life of the public equipment.

It's win-win, if only the socialists would get over their failed deadend ideology.

MRI top to bottom need for every body
Can be start from age 35 to 69 for example
And MRI needs it once every 15 to 20 years apart in that period

Because MRI show all problem just may start and if you have MRI 3 time per life time you can prevent so many problems before start or in primary secondary and if this is goes worst

No other device can show what is inside your bone and head such as tumor and etc
Only MRI show

City scan is also need it two time per life time

or ask safer machine can show any primary injury and MRI can be fix to be less hazardous too

A friend and neighbor just had laser surgery in the US after loosing his entire summer to extreme back pain and back spasms. This previously very active 72 year old man was reduced to taking little shuffling steps with a walker and those were his good days. On his bad days he spent the entire day in bed popping Tylenol 3s, Celebrex and other toxic substances. His family Doctor was actively trying to get him an appointment since April/2009. My friend had gone to Great Falls and paid to have an MRI. The MRI showed stenosis of the spinal column with compression of the spinal cord due to calcification.

I encouraged him to investigate treatment in the US because after working in the Canadian health care system for 30 years I knew his case was not going to be high priority. In this country if you are not on the verge of death they will put you on a waiting list until you are.

My friend discovered a clinic in Scottsdale that specialize in this type of condition. The procedure is done laprascopicly with a local anesthetic. The rate of infection is less than 0.1% . He contacted the clinic and within a few days they had reviewed his MRI and his clinical history and they scheduled him for the procedure. He had to wait 2 weeks but that was because he had been on powerful antiinflammatory medications and he had to be off those drugs for 2 weeks before having the procedure.

He traveled to Scottsdale. The clinic had arranged accommodation for him and his wife and they shuttled him back and forth for testing and consultation. He arrived Tuesday afternoon and had his surgery on Friday. The procedure took about 2 hours and he described it as being similar to a visit to a dentist.

Immediately after the procedure he was pain free and his persistent back spasms had disappeared. A couple of days later he was out touring the Phoenix area. 2 weeks post-op he is feeling better than he has in years. His legs are a little sore from 5 months of inactivity but he is back to his old self.

The real crime is that the technology used for this procedure doesn't even exist in Canada. The treatment for this condition in Canada involves major invasive surgery with a prolonged recovery time and a significant risk of infection ( It's tough to get those unionized hospital cleaners to actually do any cleaning). I'm sure the outcomes are not as good because they do a lot of cutting through muscle and other tissue which increases the amount of scar tissue and often leads to adhesions which can be painful.

His treatment cost him 20,000.00. He feels that was a small price to pay to get his life back.

Like Kate says. Tommy Douglas not dead enough.

At least in BC one can get a private MRI in less than 1 week just about anywhere in southern BC. When I tell patients how long the expected wait is for an MRI, a majority ask me about how to get a private MRI. Most figure that spending $1000 now is worth it if they see a neurosurgeon 6 months sooner.

Unfortunately we don't have much in the way of minimally invasive neurosurgery up here and even getting a patient to see a neurosurgeon requires grabbing one of the local neurosurgeons in the hospital corridor and showing him the patients MRI before the patient will even be seen (all of the neurosurgeons have their office staff automatically reject all new referrals unless done in this face to face manner).

I guess the one good thing about the Canadian system is that doctors get to be really good at treating chronic pain which is all one can do while people with extremely painfull prolapsed disks wait a year or more for scans and surgical referrals.

I made the mistake of leaving the radio on during Bill Good's morning show on CKNW. Heard about a minute of a segment with a Canadian talking about our health care and an American fighting Obama's plans. Bill Good chastised the American, saying something to the effect of "your priorities are wrong in the U.S. Maybe stop spending so much on your military and you can afford health care for everyone." *click*

And that, dear friends, is why CKNW sucks, except when Adler and Roy Green are on.

Why would I listen to Bill Good when I can turn the dial a bit and listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck??? Why?

And Tommy Douglas is a better Canadian than Terry Fox, my ass.

CKNW -- even worse when Christy Clark is on.

A couple of years ago while I was working in Texas, my neurologist suggested a MRI for my back. He said he would get his appointment person to arrange it. Without a word of a lie, by the time I got home that afternoon, the MRI clinic was calling to arrange a time. I said I was available on Friday morning and they booked it. And this was Wednesday afternoon! This wasn't an emergency or anything but I still got in and in less than two whole days. compare that to a typical Canadian wait time.

btw, new, a MRI isn't needed unless you have a reason. An annual MRI isn't going to help anything, and as a prophylactic, it isn't cost effective, even if it was readily available to every Canadian.

Talking about this with friends the other day, the argument against choice was that Canadian doctors would only do "top tier" medicine for lots of money, leaving no doctors for Canadians who couldn't afford the better clinics and faster procedures.

I wish I'd been fast enough to point out that our best doctors have already left the country. Heck, my ob/gyn AND pediatrician from 26 years ago left Canada, one for Europe and the other for the States. What BETTER doctors?

An American in on the conversation said that he paid $250/month for him and his wife. I pointed out that Canadians pay much higher taxes than Americans and that I suspect we were paying far more than $250/month for our (inferior) medical system.

It was pretty much 12 to one, with my being the only voice of dissent when it came to the chorus of "ooh, aah, Canada's medicare system is so much better than in the U.S."

"Canadians don’t mind waiting for elective care all that much, so long as the rich Canadian and the poor Canadian have to wait about the same amount of time."

Except rich Canadians are heading down to the States to get their elective surgery done. That's money that could be spent here in Canada, helping our economy. I thought the socialists were for protectionism.

batb As about 40% of your taxes go to health care $250 a month seems pretty cheap for two people. That would be a total tax load of 7,500 a year. For that they get health care and we get waiting lists.

I have posted this idea from time to time on various blogs, which I shall repeat on this thread.
"First Nations" in Canada should seriously consider establishing first rate diagnostic for profit clinics on reserves.
Since they are considered independent 'nations' they would operate outside the domain or sphere of the Canadian Health Care monopoly, offering immediate diagnostic service for a fee.
Instead of selling illegal cigarettes they could trade in "illegal" health care service to Canadians.
Win Win, eh?

SoccerMom, you are my new hero! You cited one of 1,000 examples of why I can no longer listen to Bill Good. Keep in mind as well that he full supports the destruction of lives that is our failed Preventing-Drug-Addicts-From-Ever-Recovering policy.

Loki

You are right about the chronic pain business. Maybe that's why Canada uses more codeine per capita than anywhere else in the world. Tylenol #3 and Percocets are one of the most prescribed, if not the top, medicine in most drug plans.

A young fellow in the U.S. Midwest, who I know through FaceBook, voted 'Yes' for gov't run healthcare and cited this as "evidence" of how all of us are deluded not be agreeing with him.

"First Nations" in Canada should seriously consider establishing first rate diagnostic for profit clinics on reserves." Joe Molnar

Not a bad idea Joe.. My advice would be that the Doctors (Medical Professional) Set & Manage the budget for the desired results, and the bean counters (MBA) massage that budget for cost cutting measures within facilities. The Doctors book the facilities.

That would also help correct Canada’s plan

Was just told I would have to wait for four months to get the results of a Pap smear test here in Quebec - or pay $100 to get a more advanced test and have the results in at most two weeks.

Four months is a long time.

It's win-win, if only the socialists would get over their failed deadend ideology.
Posted by: Oz at September 16, 2009 5:58 PM

Indeed. Liberals are pretty brain dead in this area, and I lose all patience with morons who perpetuate the fallacious argument that a parallel private system will bleed the talent pool of the public system.

See, to a leftard, everything is a zero sum game -- socialists/Liberals/leftards' brains are still wired in the stone age tribal mentality which truly was a zero sum game. That is the basis of the leftard moral calculus. If somebody earns a dollar, that means sombody somewhere lost a dollar. If somebody gets an MRI a day sooner, that means somebody had to wait an extra day. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But, in modern civilization, in the modern economy, the zero sum game simply does not exist. Should a private system exist, it will attract talent not only from the public system, but also from abroad -- talent that wasn't in the country in the first place. And if there were a private system, perhaps private medical schools would start setting up shop in Canada to pump out more medical talent. A marvelous thing, the free market system.

But not to a leftard. It's all zero sum to them, you see. We all must suffer miserably, so we can all live in an egalitarian utopia. Morons.

Tommy "the commie" Douglas, wasn't one of his hero's the scum that did all the eugenics stuff for the German government back in the 30's? What was his name again? Josef Mengele I think.

The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.

Why would I listen to Bill Good when I can turn the dial a bit and listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck??? Why?
Posted by: Soccermom at September 16, 2009 6:43 PM

So true. Since CKNW lost Rafe Mair, that station has gone vanilla bland. Bill Good. Christy Clark. Ugh. I'd rather eat broken glass.

I loved it when Adler was on in the mid afternoon, but was replaced bizarrely by Christy Clark. I know they run Adler at a different time now, but not a time when I listen to the radio. Roy Greene on the weekends is a real treat too.

Incidentally Soccermom, where can I tune into Rush or Beck?

The quote would be more credible if it reads thus: "Poor Canadians don’t mind waiting for elective care all that much, so long as they know rich Canadians have to wait about the same amount of time."

Colin,

I don't know about Glenn Beck, but here are some useful sites for you:

http://wabcradio.com (NYC)
http://560wind.townhall.com (Chicago)
http://krla870.townhall.com (Los Angeles)
http://khnr.townhall.com (Honolulu)

Robert

Colin, you can probably pick AM790 from Bellingham in Mission.

Colin:

Beck is on 790 AM from 12 - 2PM (Rush from 9 - 12). 790 AM is a station out of Bellingham, WA and you should be able to get decent reception in Mission.

Joe Molnar, excellent point and an idea that a doctor friend of mine and I kicked around for a while. The primary requirement for such a project to get off the ground is an indian band that is well run and has had some success in running real businesses instead of just trying to con governments out of money using every white-guilt inducing method in their repertoire.

There are some interior BC bands that are financially successfull on their own terms (I think the Western Standard ran a story on them some years back) and these would be the organizations that one would approach with the idea of a private medical center. What they have to offer is a quasi-extranational location which is not subject to the totalitarian Canada health act and lots of land. Most of the interior Indians I've run into as patients are hard-working good people who seem to be of a different species than the Vancouver dwelling welfare dependant chronically complaining losers who give their race a bad name.

It would be necessary to come up with a plan that would be a win-win situation for both parties and this would likely mean providing first-rate medical care to all members of the band for free and preferentially hiring band members to work in the medical center for positions they are qualified for. There would have to be some sort of profit sharing plan that would be agreed to for a period of decades. There could even be a traditional native medicine portion of the center which would be a draw for new-age types seeking "alternative" medical care.

The biggest problem would be to find capital to construct such a medical center which would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but once it was there doctors would flock to it. Surgeons want OR time and all of the latest toys they need to practice their craft. There is no point in coming up with a center like this unless one has the latest technology and the people to run it. The center should be located fairly close to a major center as there would be a lot of people working there who probably wouldn't want to live on the reserve. Given that providing free medical care for the residents of the reserve would likely be a requirement, there would be a strong focus on the treatment of diabetes, obesity and arthritis as these conditions are all more common in American Indians.

If the research team came up with effective obesity treatments, then this would be, in effect, a license to print money as a very substantial fraction of the N. American population is trying to lose weight.

It would be nice to have something like the Mayo clinic where people would come from all over the continent with their complex medical problems.

If such a center existed, I'd have no hesitation in working there as I'm totally fed up with the constant limitations I'm running into in the broken government run system.

The first time that my friend and I kicked around this idea over a bottle of scotch was in 1999 and we were hoping someone would get around to doing this in the near future. One thing we quickly decided was that we weren't going to do it as doctors are notoriously bad at business ventures.

I'm glad to see that the idea has occurred independantly to other people any maybe someday soon an individual with a spare billion or two might get around to actually implementing this concept.

Anyone here know why Worker's Compensation is allowed to send their victims to Private Clinics? I know that they do because they sent me to one in Calgary.

Jack Laydown went to a private clinic for his Hernia operation- The Shouldice Clinic in Ontario.

Your idea is a good one Joe Molnar.

…"First Nations" in Canada should seriously consider establishing first rate diagnostic for profit clinics on reserves….~ Joe Molnar
…The biggest problem would be to find capital to construct such a medical center…~loki

I believe the natives ran into another "biggest problem"

Bernie and DavidH -- bloody brilliant, thanks so much. Can't believe I didn't find this before. Yes, I pick up 790AM out of Bellingham with near crystal clarity.

Cheers!

Let's see now. I got sick in the evening. Needed an ambulance by 11pm. Had an emergency CT scan by 1am. Was admitted immediately to critical care. Spent two weeks in critical care during which I received two additional CT's, several regular x-rays, a couple of ultrasounds, blood tests every day and some days twice. And three surgeries over the next 6 months. And when I visited the surgeon to discuss that last surgery, he asked when I would like to get in - and I said,"as soon as possible". So he said, "How about next Tuesday?" Great. Laparoscopic gall bladder removal and I'm back on the my feet the next day. And you know the really good side - I'm not bankrupt like I would have been in the States, as when I retired from my hospital job in another community, I lost all my health care, dental, and optometric benefits.

One thing that always gets missed, in this discussion of wait times in Canada being so excessive - and in some cases, yes, they are. But what never gets discussed is that approximately 40,000,000 Americans have no health care because they cannot afford to pay for medical insurance.

( It's tough to get those unionized hospital cleaners to actually do any cleaning).

This is nothing more than a cheap shot by a person of little knowledge and less than average ability to actually think.

David Hildebrandt -- you make a valid point regarding the responsiveness of the Canadian system to urgent, critical care. A good friend of mine was recently diagnosed with cancer on a Tuesday, and was in for sugery on Thursday.

The problem lies primarily with medical conditions that won't kill you if you have to wait. This covers most of the elective procedures, such as knee surgeries, hip replacements, etc. Additional problems lie in the diagostic process, before the severity of a problem is even known, when waiting, for example, for an MRI scan can mean the difference between catching a disease in an early treatable phase, or not.

I also would like to take issue with the 40 million figure you cite as the number of Americans who "cannot afford...medical insurance." This is a left wing talking point, and the number has been thoroughly debunked. Take out illegal immigrants. Take out the young and stupid who choose not to buy insurance. Take out the ultra wealthy who similarly choose not to buy insurance. Then, take out those folks who are in between insurance, for example, while they are between jobs.

The chronically un- and under-insured in America is more reasonably estimated at 10-15 million. This is a problem to be sure, but not requiring of a complete revamping of the medical system. Especially when polls indicate of those who do have insurance, 85% are satisfied with it.

IMHO

To everyone who posted along the lines of "poor Canadians will accept waiting times if the rich have to wait too":

Sorry, folks, the sad truth in Canada, as I've posted here repeatedly, is that the rich do jump the queue every chance they get. The odds are if you're in a golf or tennis or bridge club, you know some doctors socially. If you need to get seen ahead of others, they'll make it happen for you. As one doctor said to me "Hey, if I see a stranger or I see a friend, I get paid the same, so why not see the friend?".

Anyone who believes a Wal-Mart greeter in Barrie has the same access to health care as a lawyer in Toronto, a lobbyist in Ottawa, or a real estate agent in Vancouver is as deluded as the people who believe the ACORN videos were fabricated.

[quote]Anyone who believes a Wal-Mart greeter in Barrie has the same access to health care as a lawyer in Toronto, a lobbyist in Ottawa, or a real estate agent in Vancouver is as deluded as the people who believe the ACORN videos were fabricated. [/quote] KevinB

Further to your point, the SASK NDP people who post here claim to get fantastic care. I believe them because I have two sisters who recently recieved prompt Cancer detection & treatment. (as good as it gets) They are both long time loyal NDP.

Do you see the issue?

I'm again without a doctor. I was tired of being told that if I had more than one ailment to look at I would need to make separate appointments.

That's what Americans can look forward to under Obamacare.

(Additional problems lie in the diagostic process, before the severity of a problem is even known, when waiting, for example, for an MRI scan can mean the difference between catching a disease in an early treatable phase, or not.)

I worked in diagnostic x-ray for 33 years. 29 of those years in a community hospital. Our wait time for getting patients in for general x-ray, fluoroscopy and ultrasound was rarely more than two weeks. And if I needed to send a patient to Saskatoon, for fluoroscopy and ultrasound, again the wait time was seldom more than two weeks. Unfortunately, CT and MRI and not so available. On the other hand, while they are valuable, they are not panaceas. And the majority of cases can be diagnosed with less technical procedures. Furthermore, it is the government that sets the level of MRI and CT examinations in the province. The hospitals that I worked with almost always did more than they were allowed in order to reduce waiting lists. So if you want to blame someone, blame the governments who set the levels of examination.

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?