50 Replies to “Tommy Douglas: Not Malignant Enough”
I cant imagine how it can get any more clear. Our health care system is failing us to a large degree.
Its way past time for the Federal Government to get on top of this issue.
Wait time guarantees would not have helped this person. He needed immediate attention, which was obviously not forthcoming from within Canada.
I would like to personally talk to whatever idiot in the system who made this decision.
It seems to me that this kind of shared responsibility between Provincial and Federal Governments is not workable. Time to get off the mark, Mr. Clement
Canadian Wheat Board
Canadian Health Care
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
All three (3) toxic institutions that should be subject to Charter Rights challenges from sea to shining sea. We are all one nation after all, according to Andrew Coyne, so shouldn’t we all be able to join as one joyous nation in a big Canadian Class Action Lawsuit to bring these rotting trees of Confederation down to the ground?
Think of how it would build our Canadian Heritage!
And more delicious news,from Bourque! Heads rolling a Lib.headquarters..the ever-glorious Steve McKinnon has resigned.Hmmm,wonder if he’s not happy with Dion?
Ahem….In case you haven’t noticed…Douglass is dead and gone…these clowns in Ontario ….McGuinty and his recovering Addict Minister of Health George Smitherman… are doing this “good work” all on their own.
Of course our own Clowns in MB are doing even better since we have the dubious distinction of Highest per capita spending on health care….with very similar results to Ontario.
Federal Provincial Jurisdictions… as they stand are no excuse for Provinces to mismanage their resources.
You will note that Ontario is asking for more Federal Dollars ..as if the rest of Canada’s taxpayers should be compensating these incompetents!
….In 2002 I had such pain in my neck and shoulders and an MRI was needed, I was adv I had to wait for EIGHTEENS MOTNHS for an MRI, I called a private clinic in EDM and that weekend, for $500 I got my MRI but no repayment of course and it ended up I needed surgery but that would have to wait another 2 years, so happened to move to Alberta and got my suregery in 2 weeks time ….welcome to NON- HEALTH CARE in…………….
SASKATCHEWAN
A self-help, “do it yourself” film, perchance?
You aren’t attention OMMAG – the corpse of Saint Tommy is propped up as human shield every time the sacred cow is threatened.
You aren’t attention OMMAG
That’s paying attention.
We all have trouble using that word “paying” when it comes to discussing Canadian Deathcare.
I think some folks make the mistake of laying total blame for our rancid health care system at the feet of the feds. It’s our own fault – we were the ones who let the feds steal health care responsibility from the provinces through the Canadian Health Act. Read the constitution! Health care is a provincial responsibility.
As much as I liked Ralph Klein I will never forgive him for sitting on his ass and doing nothing to blend private and public health care in Alberta when he is the one premier who had the resources to tell the feds to “F**k off with your stupid health care program with equal access to wait times. We’ll do it our way”.
Our only hope is for a CPC majority government so Harper can fix the screwed up Health Act.
The gist of a Canadian health care discussion I had recently:
OK, so what if your cat can get an MRI before your mother!
OK, so it isn’t perfect!
OK, so it is outrageously expensive!
OK, so some people die needlessly!
OK, so what if some rich people can get better care somewhere else!
At least it’s FAIR!
*gaak*
OMMAG:
Manitoba is subsidizing Ontario? Statistics and I always believed the opposite.
Here’s the solution for this problem:
Ban American television shows in Canada. Isn’t this how Canadians know, after all, that Americans get immediate diagnosis and care? When you watch “House” for instance, the evil greedy corporate doctors may suspect a brain tumor, and their solution? EXPENSIVE TESTS conducted immediately and then perhaps IMMEDIATE ACTION on the problem. We just cannot have this going on in Canada!
/Leftist
Of all the western democracies only the U.S has no national medical care system. Could all those nations with lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancies be wrong and the U.S. is right?
There are finite resources and it’s only a matter of how they are dedicated, some pursue equity, others privilege.
Lets give this man’s suffering and lawsuit -to prevent others from the same suffering etc-the same attention Arar is getting re the same reason. Who will be forced to resign over it. Lets put Hollan in charge of questioning.
The fact that it is illegal to spend your own money on your own health in your own country is scandalous. The 27K that Mr. McGreith sent to the US and the American health system that supports the American health infrastructure should have been spent in Canada supporting Canadian doctors, Canadian Operating Room nurses, Canadian anetheologists, Canadian clinicians. The NDP should make this an ’employment’ issue and fight tooth and nail for private care and more Canadian jobs!! Stop the medical brain drain and support Private Canadian Health Care in parallel with state supported care.
my wife is a RN(hospital name withheld due to fear of reprisal)…she has a medical condition requiring surgery…she has been waiting 6 months, and not even a phone call (she works in the surgical ward)…we are at the point where either she goes to switzerland(her mom is swiss)or syracuse(and we pay)….she has expressed the fact that her preference would be anywhere but ontario….believe me,front line health care pro’s face the same BS as every other civilian…..pathetic
Funny how Canadians demand their cable providers offer them over 100 channels but are willing to accept only one choice when it comes to their very lives.
and with 15,000 people in kingston alone with no family doctor, that one choice is all f#$%ed up
american “doc-film maker” stuart browning is an expert on canadian health care? hardly. he’s a spin doctor for right-wing lunacy. nobody, and i mean nobody takes this guy seriously. well, except maybe the rational folks from the liberty film festival and kate mcmillan.hahahaha
The problem in Canada, is that too many people like Jeff have drunk the Koolaid about the ‘superiority’ of the Canadian Health Care system without even acknowledging that just maybe we could make some improvements. But if your whole view of government health care is that it is infallible, than any little change is blasphemy.
one last thing…my wife has standing job offers in NZ, Hawaii, AZ, and a few other hot spots…if we do not get our act together soon, she will not be the only one leaving canada…won’t it be ironic, when all those turdeau boomers start getting ill(already started)and due to their precious ‘universal’ health-care , the nurse shortage will ensure no mollycoddling for them on their death-beds…good luck changing your own bed-pans kids
Trolls are so smart, aren’t they? They know everything.
Let’s see how smart they really are when they get their own brain tumor (perhaps they already have one, one possible reason for their mental problems) and then they can tell us how good it is in Canada, and how bad it is in the US.
And the question remains.Why cant Canadians cue jump? Because we have been sold a bill of goods for the past 40 some odd years and we are intellectually to lazy as a nation to take a serious look at the problem.
universal health care…what a joke..more like universal catastrophic health care….we pay for physio, chiro, prescriptions, ambulances, dental, optical, health aids(wheelchairs, canes, etc)…can someone tell me what is so damn ‘universal’ about it, besides the BS waiting lists, lack of doctors and nurses, etc, etc, etc
american “doc-film maker” stuart browning is an expert on canadian health care? hardly. he’s a spin doctor for right-wing lunacy. nobody, and i mean nobody takes this guy seriously. well, except maybe the rational folks from the liberty film festival and kate mcmillan.hahahaha
Wow. A troll vomits, scrapes his vomit off the floor and dumps it on the floor again. I’ve never thought of that! That is briliant!
I’m sure things really are not this bad. Afterall, who’s to say that someone who just happens to be holding onto to one of the 300,000 missing OHIP cards didn’t have brain surgery in his place.
those ohip cards wound up with the following
1. sgro strippers
2. aids refugees
3. al qaida operatives
4. organized crime(re-sold to illegal immigrants)
yes, it is a wonderful system here….that is why i love paying mcliars healthcare tax….IDIOTS!
Until the time medical schools open the doors to many new medical students, until the time doctors have to compete for patients and until Unions no longer have a choke hold on the healthcare industry nothing will change.
Rationing will remain and people will keep on dying needlessly as a result.
Canada currently has a state run communist system and we the public and media refuse to recognize it as such.
Maybe as the “baby boomers” belatedly discover their predicament with some bureaucrat standing on their oxygen hose, they will regret not having acted sooner to remedy the situation with competition while they were youngerand still healthy.
“Free state healthcare” means rationing!
End of story.
My relative has had to take three trip to the US and is currently in Europe for treatments not available to her in a timely or competent manner in Canada. We as a family are will have paid well over $100,000 in what may be a futile attempt at a full recovery. ALthough we would spend as much as it took, and we are of the means to do so, why should we have to spend more money on health care outside of our country, while paying exorbitant taxes into the Canadian Health Care system? My return on investment is nil. I am tired of the know it alls who believe we have the “best” health care in the world etc. It sucks.
I dislocated my shoulder in Mexico body surfing, within an hour a Doc reset my shoulder. 6 months later my shoulder was 100 percent back to normal. The bill was $1000 which my travel medical covered. I then dislocated my shoulder here in BC again and our great BC medical took 2 ½ hrs, after I arrived at the hospital to reset it. Because of the length of time my shoulder was dislocated it has never healed completely. That was 5 years ago. I would gladly pay $1000 out of my own pocket or much much more to have had this reset in 1 hr like Mexico.
I think we have to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Both my mother and sister are RNs and I am therefore exposed to the problems our health care system has in detail. For the most part I have found it to be a great system. I needed an MRI and had it within a month at St. Joseph here in Toronto. My parents, brother with prostate cancer, wife and sister with breast cancer all had super care. But the system is definetely creaking but a lot of it is caused by stupid political short term thinking decisions. Peterson closing slots in universities for medical students and you wonder why we have no doctors, Rae closing wings in hospitals, firing nurses then trying to hire them back. These quick policy changes take decades to fix.
As with most things in Ontario there is no long range planning. Aging baby-boomers will require more care. There are so many more people arriving all the time with no infrastructure to absorb them. As my sister has told me many times, immigrants coming from India and other countries now bring their parents, already old at 50 and they go right into the hospital, never contributed a dime to the sytem.
We must allow a blend of private and public care as Harris began but it must be a planned approach not fought every step of the way. The European system has a lot of benefits to it and they have a blend of both. One of the biggest costs in the US system is malpractice insurance which is forcing doctors out of high risk procedures like premature births. All these things must be examined to get the optimum system. Politicians at all levels must work together and implement the damn thing before the current system swallows every tax dollar and still explodes.
Good points David. You are right the US system is not perfect, and neither is Canada’s.
But when it comes down to the end of the day, when a body is in need of rapid medical response (on all levels, not just trauma) where would you choose to be? I choose the US. I’m glad I am still a US citizen with health insurance even though I live in La La Truedopia.
Sure I was Paying attention Kate…..it’s the Dippers who always bring up st.Thomas of the flatland……I haven’t heard mcGuilty do it yet……of course that does not mean that he has not or would not!!!
Anyway my Tommy comment was a cheek/tongue mashup….. 😉
The system certainly has many flaws and in the short term money alone won’t fix them. We’re paying for mistakes made when, for instance, Barer Stoddard issued their assinine B.S. about there being too many doctors in the system resulting in medical school enrollment cuts at a time when doctors themselves were predicting a shortfall and asking that medical school enrollments be increased. That being said, a parallel private system has much to offer. First, it provides a healthy element of competition with the public statist system which can’t hide its glaring inefficiencies when private providers innovate and provide more efficient services. Second, a user-pay private system essentially allows people who so choose to pump more money into the healthcare system overall, first by directly paying in to it thereby creating an economic incentive to shift greater resources to health care provision, second by freeing up resources to be used by those lower on the economic ladder. Of all the world’s health care systems, only North Korea, Cuba and Canada do not permit private hospitals to exist. Every other country in the world does so. Let’s get away from this ridiculous nonesense about “we’re going to be more like the U.S.” (as if that’s supposed to scare me). Maybe the lefties can take comfort in knowing that if we allow a private hospital to exist (as there is in Hanoi), we’ll be more like the glorious, democratic, people’s revolutionary republic of Vietnam. Whatever turns your crank!
Good call bringing TC Douglas into the issue of the current dangerous health system. Tommy loved his eugenics and Population control and this broken soviet-era health system is a great tool for those ends.
The reality is if you get sick you die…the Gummint just provides you an entitlement to a hospical hall to do it in.
Medical horror stories could take me all day to type, (my wife’s a nurse).
One terrific advent we now have in B.C. is decisions on high cost diagnostics, such as MRI, are being made by bureaucrats in the healthcare system, rather than the physicians.
My son has a serious medical condition, and was recommended for an MRI by the specialist, whom he waited two (2) years to see.
It was overturned by some bureaucrat, somewhere, and he’s off the list! The specialist said it happens frequently, and the only thing he can do is go back on the list, and hope someone allows it this time.
A good friend with a debilitating bone condition required surgery on her left shoulder. She was rendered unable to work.
She was placed on the “waiting list”. Meantime, the other shoulder deteriorated to where it also needs surgery. After four(4) years, she finally got the operation, but they only did the one shoulder, and said she’ll be back on the “waiting list” for the other one.
I could go on all bloody day, but I’m so pissed off thinking about our “medicare ” system, maybe I’ll just go have a glass of wine.
The weblog awards voting is open. Vote for SDA in The Best Canadian Blog category. Make Saskatchewan proud and besides Kate is the best.Just click on the Weblog awards finalist at the top left.
I really have a problem with Team Tommy and the rest of Medicare Maniacs and their instant comparison to the US ‘evil’ system whenever there is any criticism of the Canadian healthcare system. Like all fine socialists they are so quick to trash the US they close their minds(?) to the fact that there are other countries in the world that have coped and adapted their health care to give their citizens timely and efficient healthcare. All canada can do is send an ex-Dipper around the country to spend money and come back to “more money”.
Regarding the argument over our beloved health care system (a.k.a. “The Envy of the World”)…
88% of Canadian doctors go to the US when they themselves need surgery.
End of argument.
right on, dmorris…if u want the truth about the health care system in this country, solicit the opinion of the spouses of the front line troops(my wife, also a RN, is as front line as they can get)…every finished shift brings another horror story…today, a woman with cancer had her surgery cancelled for the third time…her hubby broke down, yelling we r going bankrupt…she cannot work, they have mortgaged everythinhg…all because mcliar jerkface(our glorious premier) has decreed that everything is just rosy in commie librano land….IDIOTS!
DrD, Nice to hear that there are other docs that share my views. And nice to hear that there are citizens out there who haven’t bought into the scare tactics of the left.
When a patient in the forty to sixty five age group presents with a seisure, they should be regarded as having a malignant brain tumor until proven otherwise. Delays are criminal.
A week or so ago I briefly outlined a plan for change “Private/public Healthcare, a synergistic system.
In BC we swim, ski, hike and walk the dog, but Looove speed so our driving causes a lot of stitches. Hard on Healthcare budget.
If you and I Always bought bananas, tangerines, sweet potatoes, yams, dates, grapes and REAL food [produce], EVERY time we hit the supermarket, our Healthcare costs whould probably drop by half.
Canned salmon, and only a few occaisional pork chops or garlic roll slices on crackers is all the meat one needs.
Bacon and beef? Once a month. = TG
PS Canada*s food rules? Good for the meat and dairy industry but a killer diet. = TG
The first step in cutting health care costs is to take the hospitals away from the provincial governments and turn them back over to the nuns or Salvation Army to run.
The next step would be to allow for choice. Just as a woman has a choice to abort at will so should I have the right to control my body and get healed or not at will. No bureaucracy needed.
The last step is to get the Federal government out of the health care business all together. It is more of a hindrance than help. It always asks for more information, which takes manpower to get and thus takes resources away from the patients.
“88% of Canadian doctors go to the US when they themselves need surgery.” -bryceman
97% of those doctors regretted it. Hey it’s fun making up statistics!
How about..
-100% of reichwingers disregard the quality of health received by the poor.
– 98.7 % are unconcerned about financial ruin as a consequence of catastrophic illness in the U.S.
… actually those last two stats seem about right.
How is this saving taxpayers money. A private clinic in BC is offering great care, but you pay for it, if you can. Govt says no, you must bill the govt. So, if the care in this private facility is quicker and better people will go there, if they know the govt will pay. What an added cost to the taxpayer. So, the well off will go, and save their money to holiday outside of canada.
MaryT:
About that private clinic in B.C., I think that services will now be rationed there in the same way as the rest of the health care system.
What will happen of course is that people who can afford it will be going to the States. What i cant understand is how anyone thinks that is better than having a clinic in Canada where those who can afford it can get care.
In the case that Kate brings forward, this man was essentially condemned to death by our Universal Health Care System. I am unconvinced that there was not the availability of services to this person. What i am convinced of is that the bureaucratic nonsense that goes on in Health Care could not differentiate between a sore knee and a life threatening condition.
I think the federal Gov’t is underfunding medicare hoping people will get so pissed off they’ll want private care.
Tommy Douglas figured one thing out you Tories are dangerous and can’t be trusted. More than that you hate free speech and lie like sidewalks.He was smarter than 99% of you Tories. You can’t hold a candle to him.
I cant imagine how it can get any more clear. Our health care system is failing us to a large degree.
Its way past time for the Federal Government to get on top of this issue.
Wait time guarantees would not have helped this person. He needed immediate attention, which was obviously not forthcoming from within Canada.
I would like to personally talk to whatever idiot in the system who made this decision.
It seems to me that this kind of shared responsibility between Provincial and Federal Governments is not workable. Time to get off the mark, Mr. Clement
Canadian Wheat Board
Canadian Health Care
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
All three (3) toxic institutions that should be subject to Charter Rights challenges from sea to shining sea. We are all one nation after all, according to Andrew Coyne, so shouldn’t we all be able to join as one joyous nation in a big Canadian Class Action Lawsuit to bring these rotting trees of Confederation down to the ground?
Think of how it would build our Canadian Heritage!
And more delicious news,from Bourque! Heads rolling a Lib.headquarters..the ever-glorious Steve McKinnon has resigned.Hmmm,wonder if he’s not happy with Dion?
Ahem….In case you haven’t noticed…Douglass is dead and gone…these clowns in Ontario ….McGuinty and his recovering Addict Minister of Health George Smitherman… are doing this “good work” all on their own.
Of course our own Clowns in MB are doing even better since we have the dubious distinction of Highest per capita spending on health care….with very similar results to Ontario.
Federal Provincial Jurisdictions… as they stand are no excuse for Provinces to mismanage their resources.
You will note that Ontario is asking for more Federal Dollars ..as if the rest of Canada’s taxpayers should be compensating these incompetents!
….In 2002 I had such pain in my neck and shoulders and an MRI was needed, I was adv I had to wait for EIGHTEENS MOTNHS for an MRI, I called a private clinic in EDM and that weekend, for $500 I got my MRI but no repayment of course and it ended up I needed surgery but that would have to wait another 2 years, so happened to move to Alberta and got my suregery in 2 weeks time ….welcome to NON- HEALTH CARE in…………….
SASKATCHEWAN
A self-help, “do it yourself” film, perchance?
You aren’t attention OMMAG – the corpse of Saint Tommy is propped up as human shield every time the sacred cow is threatened.
You aren’t attention OMMAG
That’s paying attention.
We all have trouble using that word “paying” when it comes to discussing Canadian Deathcare.
I think some folks make the mistake of laying total blame for our rancid health care system at the feet of the feds. It’s our own fault – we were the ones who let the feds steal health care responsibility from the provinces through the Canadian Health Act. Read the constitution! Health care is a provincial responsibility.
As much as I liked Ralph Klein I will never forgive him for sitting on his ass and doing nothing to blend private and public health care in Alberta when he is the one premier who had the resources to tell the feds to “F**k off with your stupid health care program with equal access to wait times. We’ll do it our way”.
Our only hope is for a CPC majority government so Harper can fix the screwed up Health Act.
The gist of a Canadian health care discussion I had recently:
OK, so what if your cat can get an MRI before your mother!
OK, so it isn’t perfect!
OK, so it is outrageously expensive!
OK, so some people die needlessly!
OK, so what if some rich people can get better care somewhere else!
At least it’s FAIR!
*gaak*
OMMAG:
Manitoba is subsidizing Ontario? Statistics and I always believed the opposite.
Here’s the solution for this problem:
Ban American television shows in Canada. Isn’t this how Canadians know, after all, that Americans get immediate diagnosis and care? When you watch “House” for instance, the evil greedy corporate doctors may suspect a brain tumor, and their solution? EXPENSIVE TESTS conducted immediately and then perhaps IMMEDIATE ACTION on the problem. We just cannot have this going on in Canada!
/Leftist
Of all the western democracies only the U.S has no national medical care system. Could all those nations with lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancies be wrong and the U.S. is right?
There are finite resources and it’s only a matter of how they are dedicated, some pursue equity, others privilege.
Lets give this man’s suffering and lawsuit -to prevent others from the same suffering etc-the same attention Arar is getting re the same reason. Who will be forced to resign over it. Lets put Hollan in charge of questioning.
The fact that it is illegal to spend your own money on your own health in your own country is scandalous. The 27K that Mr. McGreith sent to the US and the American health system that supports the American health infrastructure should have been spent in Canada supporting Canadian doctors, Canadian Operating Room nurses, Canadian anetheologists, Canadian clinicians. The NDP should make this an ’employment’ issue and fight tooth and nail for private care and more Canadian jobs!! Stop the medical brain drain and support Private Canadian Health Care in parallel with state supported care.
my wife is a RN(hospital name withheld due to fear of reprisal)…she has a medical condition requiring surgery…she has been waiting 6 months, and not even a phone call (she works in the surgical ward)…we are at the point where either she goes to switzerland(her mom is swiss)or syracuse(and we pay)….she has expressed the fact that her preference would be anywhere but ontario….believe me,front line health care pro’s face the same BS as every other civilian…..pathetic
Funny how Canadians demand their cable providers offer them over 100 channels but are willing to accept only one choice when it comes to their very lives.
and with 15,000 people in kingston alone with no family doctor, that one choice is all f#$%ed up
american “doc-film maker” stuart browning is an expert on canadian health care? hardly. he’s a spin doctor for right-wing lunacy. nobody, and i mean nobody takes this guy seriously. well, except maybe the rational folks from the liberty film festival and kate mcmillan.hahahaha
The problem in Canada, is that too many people like Jeff have drunk the Koolaid about the ‘superiority’ of the Canadian Health Care system without even acknowledging that just maybe we could make some improvements. But if your whole view of government health care is that it is infallible, than any little change is blasphemy.
one last thing…my wife has standing job offers in NZ, Hawaii, AZ, and a few other hot spots…if we do not get our act together soon, she will not be the only one leaving canada…won’t it be ironic, when all those turdeau boomers start getting ill(already started)and due to their precious ‘universal’ health-care , the nurse shortage will ensure no mollycoddling for them on their death-beds…good luck changing your own bed-pans kids
Trolls are so smart, aren’t they? They know everything.
Let’s see how smart they really are when they get their own brain tumor (perhaps they already have one, one possible reason for their mental problems) and then they can tell us how good it is in Canada, and how bad it is in the US.
And the question remains.Why cant Canadians cue jump? Because we have been sold a bill of goods for the past 40 some odd years and we are intellectually to lazy as a nation to take a serious look at the problem.
universal health care…what a joke..more like universal catastrophic health care….we pay for physio, chiro, prescriptions, ambulances, dental, optical, health aids(wheelchairs, canes, etc)…can someone tell me what is so damn ‘universal’ about it, besides the BS waiting lists, lack of doctors and nurses, etc, etc, etc
american “doc-film maker” stuart browning is an expert on canadian health care? hardly. he’s a spin doctor for right-wing lunacy. nobody, and i mean nobody takes this guy seriously. well, except maybe the rational folks from the liberty film festival and kate mcmillan.hahahaha
Wow. A troll vomits, scrapes his vomit off the floor and dumps it on the floor again. I’ve never thought of that! That is briliant!
I’m sure things really are not this bad. Afterall, who’s to say that someone who just happens to be holding onto to one of the 300,000 missing OHIP cards didn’t have brain surgery in his place.
those ohip cards wound up with the following
1. sgro strippers
2. aids refugees
3. al qaida operatives
4. organized crime(re-sold to illegal immigrants)
yes, it is a wonderful system here….that is why i love paying mcliars healthcare tax….IDIOTS!
Until the time medical schools open the doors to many new medical students, until the time doctors have to compete for patients and until Unions no longer have a choke hold on the healthcare industry nothing will change.
Rationing will remain and people will keep on dying needlessly as a result.
Canada currently has a state run communist system and we the public and media refuse to recognize it as such.
Maybe as the “baby boomers” belatedly discover their predicament with some bureaucrat standing on their oxygen hose, they will regret not having acted sooner to remedy the situation with competition while they were youngerand still healthy.
“Free state healthcare” means rationing!
End of story.
My relative has had to take three trip to the US and is currently in Europe for treatments not available to her in a timely or competent manner in Canada. We as a family are will have paid well over $100,000 in what may be a futile attempt at a full recovery. ALthough we would spend as much as it took, and we are of the means to do so, why should we have to spend more money on health care outside of our country, while paying exorbitant taxes into the Canadian Health Care system? My return on investment is nil. I am tired of the know it alls who believe we have the “best” health care in the world etc. It sucks.
I dislocated my shoulder in Mexico body surfing, within an hour a Doc reset my shoulder. 6 months later my shoulder was 100 percent back to normal. The bill was $1000 which my travel medical covered. I then dislocated my shoulder here in BC again and our great BC medical took 2 ½ hrs, after I arrived at the hospital to reset it. Because of the length of time my shoulder was dislocated it has never healed completely. That was 5 years ago. I would gladly pay $1000 out of my own pocket or much much more to have had this reset in 1 hr like Mexico.
I think we have to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Both my mother and sister are RNs and I am therefore exposed to the problems our health care system has in detail. For the most part I have found it to be a great system. I needed an MRI and had it within a month at St. Joseph here in Toronto. My parents, brother with prostate cancer, wife and sister with breast cancer all had super care. But the system is definetely creaking but a lot of it is caused by stupid political short term thinking decisions. Peterson closing slots in universities for medical students and you wonder why we have no doctors, Rae closing wings in hospitals, firing nurses then trying to hire them back. These quick policy changes take decades to fix.
As with most things in Ontario there is no long range planning. Aging baby-boomers will require more care. There are so many more people arriving all the time with no infrastructure to absorb them. As my sister has told me many times, immigrants coming from India and other countries now bring their parents, already old at 50 and they go right into the hospital, never contributed a dime to the sytem.
We must allow a blend of private and public care as Harris began but it must be a planned approach not fought every step of the way. The European system has a lot of benefits to it and they have a blend of both. One of the biggest costs in the US system is malpractice insurance which is forcing doctors out of high risk procedures like premature births. All these things must be examined to get the optimum system. Politicians at all levels must work together and implement the damn thing before the current system swallows every tax dollar and still explodes.
Good points David. You are right the US system is not perfect, and neither is Canada’s.
But when it comes down to the end of the day, when a body is in need of rapid medical response (on all levels, not just trauma) where would you choose to be? I choose the US. I’m glad I am still a US citizen with health insurance even though I live in La La Truedopia.
Sure I was Paying attention Kate…..it’s the Dippers who always bring up st.Thomas of the flatland……I haven’t heard mcGuilty do it yet……of course that does not mean that he has not or would not!!!
Anyway my Tommy comment was a cheek/tongue mashup….. 😉
The system certainly has many flaws and in the short term money alone won’t fix them. We’re paying for mistakes made when, for instance, Barer Stoddard issued their assinine B.S. about there being too many doctors in the system resulting in medical school enrollment cuts at a time when doctors themselves were predicting a shortfall and asking that medical school enrollments be increased. That being said, a parallel private system has much to offer. First, it provides a healthy element of competition with the public statist system which can’t hide its glaring inefficiencies when private providers innovate and provide more efficient services. Second, a user-pay private system essentially allows people who so choose to pump more money into the healthcare system overall, first by directly paying in to it thereby creating an economic incentive to shift greater resources to health care provision, second by freeing up resources to be used by those lower on the economic ladder. Of all the world’s health care systems, only North Korea, Cuba and Canada do not permit private hospitals to exist. Every other country in the world does so. Let’s get away from this ridiculous nonesense about “we’re going to be more like the U.S.” (as if that’s supposed to scare me). Maybe the lefties can take comfort in knowing that if we allow a private hospital to exist (as there is in Hanoi), we’ll be more like the glorious, democratic, people’s revolutionary republic of Vietnam. Whatever turns your crank!
Good call bringing TC Douglas into the issue of the current dangerous health system. Tommy loved his eugenics and Population control and this broken soviet-era health system is a great tool for those ends.
The reality is if you get sick you die…the Gummint just provides you an entitlement to a hospical hall to do it in.
Medical horror stories could take me all day to type, (my wife’s a nurse).
One terrific advent we now have in B.C. is decisions on high cost diagnostics, such as MRI, are being made by bureaucrats in the healthcare system, rather than the physicians.
My son has a serious medical condition, and was recommended for an MRI by the specialist, whom he waited two (2) years to see.
It was overturned by some bureaucrat, somewhere, and he’s off the list! The specialist said it happens frequently, and the only thing he can do is go back on the list, and hope someone allows it this time.
A good friend with a debilitating bone condition required surgery on her left shoulder. She was rendered unable to work.
She was placed on the “waiting list”. Meantime, the other shoulder deteriorated to where it also needs surgery. After four(4) years, she finally got the operation, but they only did the one shoulder, and said she’ll be back on the “waiting list” for the other one.
I could go on all bloody day, but I’m so pissed off thinking about our “medicare ” system, maybe I’ll just go have a glass of wine.
The weblog awards voting is open. Vote for SDA in The Best Canadian Blog category. Make Saskatchewan proud and besides Kate is the best.Just click on the Weblog awards finalist at the top left.
I really have a problem with Team Tommy and the rest of Medicare Maniacs and their instant comparison to the US ‘evil’ system whenever there is any criticism of the Canadian healthcare system. Like all fine socialists they are so quick to trash the US they close their minds(?) to the fact that there are other countries in the world that have coped and adapted their health care to give their citizens timely and efficient healthcare. All canada can do is send an ex-Dipper around the country to spend money and come back to “more money”.
Regarding the argument over our beloved health care system (a.k.a. “The Envy of the World”)…
88% of Canadian doctors go to the US when they themselves need surgery.
End of argument.
right on, dmorris…if u want the truth about the health care system in this country, solicit the opinion of the spouses of the front line troops(my wife, also a RN, is as front line as they can get)…every finished shift brings another horror story…today, a woman with cancer had her surgery cancelled for the third time…her hubby broke down, yelling we r going bankrupt…she cannot work, they have mortgaged everythinhg…all because mcliar jerkface(our glorious premier) has decreed that everything is just rosy in commie librano land….IDIOTS!
DrD, Nice to hear that there are other docs that share my views. And nice to hear that there are citizens out there who haven’t bought into the scare tactics of the left.
When a patient in the forty to sixty five age group presents with a seisure, they should be regarded as having a malignant brain tumor until proven otherwise. Delays are criminal.
A week or so ago I briefly outlined a plan for change “Private/public Healthcare, a synergistic system.
In BC we swim, ski, hike and walk the dog, but Looove speed so our driving causes a lot of stitches. Hard on Healthcare budget.
If you and I Always bought bananas, tangerines, sweet potatoes, yams, dates, grapes and REAL food [produce], EVERY time we hit the supermarket, our Healthcare costs whould probably drop by half.
Canned salmon, and only a few occaisional pork chops or garlic roll slices on crackers is all the meat one needs.
Bacon and beef? Once a month. = TG
PS Canada*s food rules? Good for the meat and dairy industry but a killer diet. = TG
The first step in cutting health care costs is to take the hospitals away from the provincial governments and turn them back over to the nuns or Salvation Army to run.
The next step would be to allow for choice. Just as a woman has a choice to abort at will so should I have the right to control my body and get healed or not at will. No bureaucracy needed.
The last step is to get the Federal government out of the health care business all together. It is more of a hindrance than help. It always asks for more information, which takes manpower to get and thus takes resources away from the patients.
“88% of Canadian doctors go to the US when they themselves need surgery.” -bryceman
97% of those doctors regretted it. Hey it’s fun making up statistics!
How about..
-100% of reichwingers disregard the quality of health received by the poor.
– 98.7 % are unconcerned about financial ruin as a consequence of catastrophic illness in the U.S.
… actually those last two stats seem about right.
How is this saving taxpayers money. A private clinic in BC is offering great care, but you pay for it, if you can. Govt says no, you must bill the govt. So, if the care in this private facility is quicker and better people will go there, if they know the govt will pay. What an added cost to the taxpayer. So, the well off will go, and save their money to holiday outside of canada.
MaryT:
About that private clinic in B.C., I think that services will now be rationed there in the same way as the rest of the health care system.
What will happen of course is that people who can afford it will be going to the States. What i cant understand is how anyone thinks that is better than having a clinic in Canada where those who can afford it can get care.
In the case that Kate brings forward, this man was essentially condemned to death by our Universal Health Care System. I am unconvinced that there was not the availability of services to this person. What i am convinced of is that the bureaucratic nonsense that goes on in Health Care could not differentiate between a sore knee and a life threatening condition.
I think the federal Gov’t is underfunding medicare hoping people will get so pissed off they’ll want private care.
Tommy Douglas figured one thing out you Tories are dangerous and can’t be trusted. More than that you hate free speech and lie like sidewalks.He was smarter than 99% of you Tories. You can’t hold a candle to him.