Because high risk pregnancies come with so little warning;
Well, you can’t expect a G7 economy of only 30 million people to be able to offer the same level of neonatal ICU coverage as a town of 50,000 in remote rural Montana. And let’s face it, there’s nothing an expectant mom likes more than 300 miles in a bumpy twin prop over the Rockies.
More on the Calgary quartet at BBC.
More reaction: Don Surber strikes a similar theme.
Well. Mark has managed to move the Rockies! Wow. Except for this small error, the fact remains…why did they have to go that far to start with? I thought we had universal,socialized health care,available “free” to all Canucks. Oh wait. Didn’t Ralphie-poo blow-up a hospital in Calgary? I hope the Friends(?) of Medicare are made to foot the bill for this.
My wife is an RN. Does not surprise me at all. Librano morons have totally screwed our health care system. Yet, if anybody even mentions some private health care, it is the moral equivalent to resurrecting the third reich(in the eyes of librano idiots). Just wait, in a few years when the dope ingesting yuppies start getting ill, and the nurses start retiring in droves. The librano idiots will not be able to stop private health care at that point. Good luck emptying your parents bedpans, folks.
No doubt Michael Moore will be all over this episode š
good thing Canadian socialists closed all those med school spaces in the 90’s to deal with our glut of doctors.
Canadian health care: waits to deliver your baby but no waits to abort it.
Yeah, I noticed the Rockies transplantation as well – though Calgary is close enough to the Rockies that flying in is often a roller-coaster experience. But the underlying point remains valid, nonetheless.
Weird, I just posted the same quote. Ah well.
I’m going to say something unpopular across all political groups … We really don’t have a problem with health care we have a problem with health in general.
The majority of our health care spending is wasted on treating preventable conditions and we will not have speedy access to high quality health care until we fix this problem.
Don’t see what the big deal is? Aren’t those babies American citizens now?
Sorry, I feel must fix this comment:
The majority of our health care spending is wasted on needless bureaucracy/politics and we will not have speedy access to high quality health care until we fix this problem.
There, that’s better. I do understand and agree with you about preventative care but it’s only half the equation.
Good point, Dan. From the Canadian health-care system, what a gift – American citizenship!
I bet you wish Ralph hadn’t blown up that hospital now, eh?
Yeah, so lets fix it by putting more money into the system. This means a bit more in taxes, and the second you’re sick you’ll be happy you paid it.
Americans pay way, way, way more, despite the fact that 40 million of them are without insurance. We could pay a bit more, and fix most of our problems without crippling sick people with retarded medical bills.
You guys are such outrageous suckers thinking that American for profit hospitals can pay medical professionals more, and still reap a profit without passing on these expenses to the user.
On that note… I have some property I’m selling in Florida. It’s a little wet, but I swear it’s a deal. If you don’t believe me… you clearly don’t support the troops.
The extremist fear mongers who cling to the outmoded Canadian “system” will even use this example to scare people about the evils of U.S. medical care, its costs and its “wasteful” facilities.
When is the last time you’ve seen a serious MSM comparison of all of those countries that have a mix of public and private care? No, it was decided that letting people queue and sometimes die rather than allowing supplementary private insurance like almost every other country in the world is a peculiarly Canadian “Value,” and, most important, not “American style,” to quote the NDP’s beloved curse.
If the U.S. is at one extreme (and most of the reasons for the U.S. problems involve too much rather than too little government interference), Canada (along with its medical system soulmates North Korea and Cuba) is at the other.
John, I expect you’ve never worked at a responsible job in a real company in your life, nor have you studied economics. I can tell you that in my company, we are constantly striving to deliver a better product at less cost. There is no such incentive in a government agency, hence they cannot compete when people have a choice.
In a nut-shell, this is why the Soviet Union was a failure, and the United States remains the most successful country in the history of the world.
People, relax.
The truth of the matter is there is a huge economic boom going on in Alberta.
Not only are 50,000 people a year moving into the province I’ve spent all but three years of my life in, but there’s another factor.
When economic times are good, birth rates increase.
There’s a shortage of maternity ward beds all across Alberta, the economic engine of Canada.
All I can tell you is this economic boom beats living on welfare, like my single mom had to do for 10 years after my dad left us. Thankfully, she raised two well-adjusted children who appreciate the gifts we are now receiving.
And, Alberta’s baby boom will continue for at least another two decades.
I love this place. It’s exciting. It’s vibrant and it has a free-enterprise government.
Don’t all move here at once from the People’s Republic of Saskatchewan at once, you hear.
The quality of health care in Canada has been a topic of discussion for years and years. In all that time, I have rarely heard any pro change person recommend the US model. US-style health care is almost exclusively brought up by the anti change forces as the only other possible system.
There is a whole world out there beyond NA. Most of Europe and a few Asian countries have better ranked systems than either the US or Canada. Wouldn’t it make sense to look at them to see what works and what doesn’t? Then allow provinces to experiment based on those models.
Canada has some real challenges with labour shortages, rationing care, increasing cost and a large aging population. It would be sensible to have a plan beyond just throwing more money at it. Eventually, taxpayers can not afford to give governments any more money.
Americans pay way, way, way more, despite the fact that 40 million of them are without insurance.
Who pays more is debatable.
The American uninsured encompasses a lot of slackers that refuse to pay for health insurance especially with the 20-30 something crowd. It’s a personal responsibility issue. The price for a simple catastrophic policy isn’t that expensive for that age group. They’d rather buy iphones and stuff with their discretionary incomes. It is often a transient situation when job switching people are put in the uninsured numbers.
No one is denied care. If you are poor you get Medicaid or indigent funding. An illegal alien here would have received the same quality care as the mother in that story.
We get a better quality medicine in return as this Canadian has written in this issue of City Journal:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html
John, you don’t work in health care. I can tell, because if you did, or even knew anybody who was sick, you wouldn’t say stuff like that.
Don’t you have a bridge to be under?
Do I smell a troll or did I step in some dog shit?
Let’s recap, like one of my most hated managers used to say: we have no sizable military (come on, those few is not what a country size of Europe should commit), no real border protection, no network of highways and railways to support, while collecting some highest taxes. No real healthcare as we just saw. Where do the bloody money go?
Mother and babies were on CNN. Things could be worse for the family. She could have been sent to NYC, where the city council has banned baby bottles, by 2020, and banned baby formula from gift baskets immediately.
“In a nut-shell, this is why the Soviet Union was a failure, and the United States remains the most successful country in the history of the world.”
Interesting, but the United States is ripping itself apart. You may want to read this article in the notoriously lefty rag, The Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/80fa0a2c-49ef-11dc-9ffe-0000779fd2ac.html
As for private companies being efficient. Bullshit. They’re paying execs waaaaaay more than they’re worth, and in the States, this is why so many people can’t afford insurance.
You’ve been suckered by the lobbyists who are desperately trying to get at your wallet. This is why they pay the hacks at the Fraser to feed you this bullshit.
From Wikipedia’s entry comparing both systems. Please note that the figures below come from the WHO.
“Health care is one of the most expensive items of both nationsā budgets. The U.S. government spends more per capita on health care than the government does in Canada. In 2004, the government of Canada spent $2,120 (in US dollars) per person on health care, while the United States government spent $2,724.[5]
However, U.S. government spending covers less than half of all health care costs. Private spending for health care is also far greater in the U.S. than in Canada. In Canada, an average of $917 was spent annually by individuals or private insurance companies for health care, including dental, eye care, and drugs. In the U.S., this number is $3,372.[5] In 2004, health care consumed 15.4% of U.S. annual GDP. In Canada, only 9.8% of GDP was spent on health care.[5]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared
I worked at the largest NICU in Calgary for
fifteen years.
Everyone of those years improvements were made
for the babies. Bigger NICU, more room made at
the hospitals that take the babies when they are
no longer critical.
We have had a growth problem in Calgary and it
is putting a strain on every aspect of this
city.
Hospitals have been sending mothers and babies
to other hospitals for a long time, the opposite
can happen as well, the Calgary NICU will take
babies from Edmonton, Vancouver and Saskatoon
when they are filled.. It is not always easy to know when babies will decide to be born.
Our health care is a mess, I do not deny that
in any way, but the babies get all they need,
believe me. They are treated and cared about
by nurses and doctors who care and have special
training.
Yes, they have to move them sometimes and that
is terrible, but who can predict how many babies
we will get in a month, trust me, we have tried as
it would certainly make life easier for everyone.
It is the adults who having many needs that are
not met. I love the blaming the patient bit, like
seniors can stop getting arthitis, heart problems,
hip problems, come on, they are no different than
people in the past.
The liberals and the premiers of the provinces
did not look ahead and see the fact the nurses
will be retiring, the doctors would leave for
the states for better money and being able to
give better care, the cities would grow as
Calgary has, there are many reasons for the messs
we are in and I think people have taken the
good healthcare we had for granted. I think the
liberal thinking is the greatest cause as they
talk alot about helping the “people” but
rarely do so.
Maybe we will not take it for granted after we clean up the mess and that will take a very long timebecause the politicians in our country can’t make up their mind and as we continue to fall apart, they moan and whine, but do NOTHING.
If one of the premiers had the courage to
stand up and do something, things could change,
but not until we get mad enough and Canadians
don’t get mad, they get whiney.
John, like you or not, not all execs are thieves as you are trying to portray them, and it’s their pay that makes American economy great. You just sound like an envious looser, sorry.
“John, you don’t work in health care. I can tell, because if you did, or even knew anybody who was sick, you wouldn’t say stuff like that.”
Actually I have a sister who is a manager at an Ontario hospital. She hates it. Says the problems are chronic, but ultimately stem from underfunding.
BC on the other hand isn’t all that bad in my experience. The birth of our son was easy as can be with our system, and even when he got very sick at 3 months, we had excellent care. We couldn’t have wished for better help then we received.
If we lived in the States… we’d probably be screwed, or our son might be dead.
You are aware of the right? That American infant mortality rate is behind Cuba.
You guys might want to look into stuff like stats, and not just the vomit you so happily consume from so called “think-tanks”.
Actually, since that hospital had been long since closed and was sitting derelict, I’m glad Ralph blew it up. Or should it have been left to sit until the vagrants burned it? These people who believe that derelict buildings can cure you are never clear on just how you take care of them.
People. Please stop using red herring arguments like there was no space because Calgary and Alberta are booming. This has zip to do with a boom in Alberta. Did you read the article?
Health officials said they checked every other neonatal intensive care unit in Canada but none had space.
Is there a boom in Halifax?
And the very fact that they checked hospitals further East than Saskatchewan shows how retarded our medical system is. If I was in their shoes and was told my wife was being flown to the East for care I’d say F-off! 1 hour to Montana or 5 hours to Toronto. Which makes more sense? That’s a no brainer.
I’m happy I earn enough money to buy any health care I require from the USA if I can’t get it in Canada. But I’m also sad that the retards opposing 2 tier healthcare are willing to let people like me send our dollars out of the country and inject them into the US system instead of spending our dollars in the Canadian system.
You’re obviously gullible enough to believe the “vomit” coming from the Left-Wing Cuban Think Tank to believe that huge crock of shit.
“John, like you or not, not all execs are thieves as you are trying to portray them, and it’s their pay that makes American economy great. You just sound like an envious looser, sorry.”
The American economy is not “great”. In case you’ve been napping, it’s a mess, as we are now seeing.
Earnings for the middle class have stagnated while the CEOs take home more and more. They are laughing their asses off at suckers like you who they’ve tricked into doing the work for them.
Envious? Hardly. I wouldn’t live in the States for any amount of money.
John, you’re in the wrong place, you took a right hand turn at this site:
http://www.ibelieveallofMichaelMooresbullshit.com
you might want to try this one:
http://www.150milliondead?-letsgivecommunismonemorechance.com
you’ll feel right at home there.
kingstontard, I noticed you never explained your inaccurate comment — calling someone else who was clearly right as a point of fact — a “tard”.
Which served to demonstrate you were one. On this point.
What exactly don’t you guys believe?
That millions of Americans are without insurance?
That Americans aren’t ultimately paying more for care than Canadians once you calculate insurance payments, and taxes?
That the infant mortality rate is higher than Cuba’s?
That the lifespan of the average American is dropping, and it probably has a lot to do with poor access to treatment?
What exactly?
Montana is the third poorest US state too!
Alberta’s birth rate increased 15% in 2006.
That’s much higher than the in-migration of economic refugees from other People’s Republics across Canada.
“You guys are such outrageous suckers thinking that American for profit hospitals..”
Isn’t that cute? John actually believes there’s no profit made in the Canadian health care system. When in fact, it’s the precise opposite – everyone in the system is guaranteed to profit.
Except the patient.
Kate:
Especially the union labour in the government monopoly system.
Cuba, North Korea, Canada.
The shining beacons of health-care models in the world.
It is somewhat eye-opening when leftists reveal what they consider to be “common sense.”
In fact, letting troll types run off at the mouth does encourage them to tip their hand a little. In general, what a person considers “common-sensical” reveals his or her limits. Most people’s base of common sense comes from themselves, their family, their friends, their neighbours, and from reading materials that they consider credible.
It’s a pity that there are no industrial psychologists (that I know of) reading this thread, and the other ones on SDA with trolls in them. It would provide useful grist for one of those psychology tests used in industry.
The people who profit the most in the Canadian health care system are the legions of consultants and bureaucrats who are overpaid, and as useless as teats on a bull. They walk around our hospitals with clipboards in hand, making pie in the sky promises. The only constant is that they all golf in the summer and ski in the winter(on the taxpayer’s dime). Other than that, my dog makes a bigger contribution to the system(me bad, I eat pork, wear pigskin, drink beer and own a dog…..oops – other post)
kingston**** is right… down with bloated administration.
Fine, kingstontard, you won’t address your inaccurate comment. I guess it’s not in you.
John, if everything is so hunky dorey in BC – then why was that Surrey BC woman airlifted to St. Joseph’s hospital in Bellingham Washington to deliver her child a few months back. Umm because there were no beds available for her in BC???
Do you remember her? She was the one that complained bitterly about being dumped in Washington to have her baby??
BTW:
“They’re paying execs waaaaaay more than they’re worth, and in the States, this is why so many people can’t afford insurance.”
Really? Wow, how you’ve connected those dots is staggering.
1. I’ve worked on the health insurance side of the BC medicare system
2. I support private medicine
3. I acknowledge the government funded system has done some good ā it saved my life and I’m sure it has saved the life of someone you know too
4. That doesn’t mean it’s better than the alternative; just not wholy bad
5. John makes some good points, particularly in regards to overall positive health outcomes in the United States and Canada
6. Life expectancy in the US is declining; this isn’t a good thing
7. I disagree with John that the most likely explanation is lack of access to treatment: More Americans have health insurance now than ever, medical technology continues to advance by leaps and bounds, and the problem is elsewhere
8. Diet and exercise ā I’m not the first person to point out many Americans and Canadians for that matter are fat, am I?
9. I’m sure there’s much more to it than that
What I don’t understand, sooz, is how you can use an example of one woman being airlifted to the US ā when I worked in the BC health insurance system and can assure you we have reciprocal agreements and also treat US patients regularly ā proves anything at all.
It’s a sample size of one.
I think you would be better off cooly analyzing the strengths and weakness of, and the incredible pressures on, health systems all over the world.
No one has enough resources. How to allocate them is key.
And as Tommy Douglas, the man who Kate has this inexplicable vendetta against, acknowledged in his later years, we haven’t been able to make central planning work.
Let me put it this way… even though I could probably afford to pay medical insurance better than most people… they’ll have to pull universal from my cold dead hands before I let it go.
And while I respect Christoph’s comments, I’m sorry, but the number of insured Americans is dropping wildly, because the price of insurance is going up, not down, and incomes are stagnating.
http://www.cbpp.org/8-29-06health.htm
Hence the reason medicare is becoming such a hot issue.
So John, if you and your wife were in this same predicament and the only option was to fly to the States, what would you do?
“I’m sorry Honey. But you know how I feel about the Evil Empire! Could you at least hang on till Bush is gone?”
I live in Montana. We are considered kind of an economic backwater compared to other states in the U.S. Despite this, the unemployment level in the Billings area near where I live is down near 2%. This beats the daylights out of any socialistic country I have read about (France, UK, etc). My job provides me with full health care, including dental, vision, and prescription drugs. Yesterday, my elderly father complained about stomach pain. I called our local clinic at about 9 am. They squeezed us in at 11:30 am. I doubt there is a health care system in the world that can beat this. Don’t expect me to approve of turning our health care over to the government.
John, this was different than my impression, yet you could be right. I’m not an expert on this.
I’ll say though, and it’s just my opinion, that I think there are other more important factors related to longevity and that’s lifestyle.
Specifically, we’re altering our foods so profoundly, even replacing cane sugar with the much more deadly high-fructose corn syrup.
Anyway, thanks for bringing your viewpoints to the debate. I support increased private delivery of health services as countries that have a hybrid system seem to do better.
Yet… most countries do so that may be somewhat meaningless.
Ultimately, however, I believe it’s immoral to tell a rich person (and I’m not one) they can spend $300,000 on a car, but will go to jail if they pay a doctor for a hip transplant to relieve their pain.
Or, to be pedantically fair, that the doctor would lose his ability to practice or whatever the actual consequences should be.
If people are free to spend their own money on trivial things, and they should be, then they should damn well be free to spend their money on serious things — like their own health.
Right now the only country that has a similar medical system as Canada’s is N. Korea, Cuba has joined the revisionists and is allowing outsiders to pay for medical treatment. Every other country in the world allows people to pay for their own medical care if they so wish.
In BC there is a private system emerging which still hasn’t gotten to the point of the Quebec private system, but it is making the lives of hundreds of people easier. Today I saw a patient who presented to my office 4 months ago in severe pain with his knee locked in partial flexion as a result of a buchethandle tear in his medial meniscus. I sent him to ER assuming that the orthopedic surgeon on call would take him into surgery that day, but he never did get to see an orthopedic surgeon. He was given an appointment to see the surgeon in TWO WEEKS time and that was just the initial office appointment. Who knows when the surgery would be. All that ER could offer him was iv morphine and sent him back to my office to get a narcotics prescription (I’ve gotten really good at treating pain with the long surgical waits that exist in Canada). My patient wasn’t going to stand for this and so I called up a private MRI clinic and the Cambie surgical center. That afternoon he had an MRI of his knee done confirming my diagnosis and the next day he had arthroscopic surgery to fix his knee and was walking. He couldn’t pay for this directly, his company paid for the surgery which is the way that people get around the assinine Canada health act. Total cost to him was $5K and today he told me he thought it was well worth the cost to not spend possibly a month in agony waiting for what is a very simple arthroscopic surgery. Not everyone wants to be stoned on opiates for long periods of time as it does make things like working a little difficult yet this is all Tommy Douglas’s system is able to offer the average Canadian in this position. If, on the other hand, a serial pedophile developed this condition while in jail, he would be able to rapidly avail himself of the services of a private clinic at government expense. Injured workers also bypass the socialized medical system and get immediate diagnostic imaging and treatment at private clinics. All goes to show that hypocrisy is a fundamental Canadian value.
One of the factors screwing up Canadian healthcare is the presence of excessive union presence in hospitals. This results in a large number of overpaid and underproductive individuals who are totally resistent to any change. Private clinics are non-union and can rapidly reconfigure themselves to deal with changed circumstances.
The only advantage to the present medicare system is not having to bill the patient directly. Private medicine is already here and people are far more accepting now of paying for medical services if it means they can get access to them sooner. The present system assumes that the value of a persons time is 0. For any professional who is earning $100+/hour, even a weeks wait for a procedure represents a loss of income of at least $4000.
Cripes! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There are other developed countries besides the US to look for in examples of how to deliver health care. As a Canuck in the healthcare world down here, I have to say that people are not dying on the streets here as TC Douglas and the Friends of Medicare would have you think.
Panicy john is afraid that his universe will be gone and he will have to pay for health care. Wake up Lad, you are already paying premiums, directly in taxes or out of pocket like Alberta and now Ontario. A public/private system can be done. Just talk to an Aussie in the field. I have and I’ve been there. No holes in their safety net.
John, you shot yourself in the foot by quoting the very left-wing “Center on Budget and Policy Priorities”. It is NOT a respected, bi-partisan outfit. Do you also believe the dishonest crap that Michael Mooreās puts in his crocumentaries?
loki – I had a similar, but less problematic event, too. It took me SIX WEEKS to see a specialist, and then another TWO MONTHS to get a minor operation on a finger. I am sure I would have more use of that finger had I not waited so long for the āfreeā health care.