Hey, long waiting times can be good for something:
I was in Edmonton, Alberta last October speaking to a Canadian journalists’ association. The mostly lefty journalists there to a person agreed that there are enormously long waits for basic services in Canada. That didn’t stop the journalists from supporting the socialized system. One told me that the year long waits”¦was proof of how efficient the Canadian system is”¦ . His point: There is too much excess in the U.S. system while in Canada only those who really need procedures get them. Under such thinking, then, the Soviet system was the most efficient system of all”¦
Related posts:
- A Canadian speaks: "Americans are lucky to have their current health care system, and should do everything in their power to preserve it"
- Rationing health care by waiting times, or by cost
- Waiting for the doctor
- Physician tiers and advertising in the NY Times
- Border crossing babies
- Procedures becoming obsolete for internal medicine?
- Waiting Canadians = Uninsured Americans?
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{ 10 comments }
Wow, not exactly an unbiased article. Considering just these two sentences “The mostly lefty journalists there agreed that there are enormously long waits for basic services in Canada. That didn’t stop the journalists from supporting the socialized system.” are’nt the unqualified words “lefty” and “socialized” not immediately red flags for a totally biased ideology?
Anyway, he goes on to talk about rationing further down in the article. Complete nonsense.
Here’s a different way to look at rationing. From Health Canada (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/index_e.html …admittedly not a completely unbiased site but that doesn’t seem to matter in this case anyway):
“The Basics: universal coverage for medically necessary health care services provided on the basis of need, rather than the ability to pay.”
So we can either ration healthcare services on the basis of medical necessity or we can ration them on the patient’s ability to pay.
Which one seems to make more sense?
Ability to Pay.
Who decides who is more needy? How would it be implemented? What sort of convoluted bureaucracy would be resoibsible for determining who was next in line for dialysis, or even emergency catheterization:
Our cath lab can handle three cazses but we have four waiting. Quick – call the government!
Another vote for ability to pay. The rest comes under the domain of public health initiatives and emergency care.
Wow. It’s only biased if you don’t agree with the Komissars.
What anon does not say is that needs up here are broadly defined by doctors, and that far too many people get stuff done that they don’t need because a) the one receiving the dough makes the calls about what is needed, and b) patients don’t care because they think that someone else is paying for it. They think “free” is better than nothing.
In the end, patients complain of long lines and crappy treatment, and doctors complain that they don’t make enough. It’s wonderfully Soviet, with one big difference. The Soviets knew well that what they had was crappy.
I’m still not sure why there’s so much outcry against a two-tiered system in Canada…
when the Dr.s continue to determine the ‘need’, and get paid by the treatment or visit, the outcome is un-nessessary tests. conversely, if there was a government oversight, then the patient may, or most likely, won’t get needed tests. Add the easy ability to sue for millions for mal-practice to either group, and you achieve equalibruim. Checks and balances.
An easier method is to require a simple fee-plus arrangement to elimminate un-nessessary Dr. visits…even $20, will keep every silly cough or sneeze from arriving at the dr.’s office. Welfare folks could be exempt if you are so soft hearted..but a Dr should be able to say to a patient who is there because he or she has a cold, should have to pay for stupid visits to the Dr.
On a different note…the 1+ billion dollars totally wasted on the gun registry could have bought MRI’s by the score to alleviate some of the waiting now experienced by legitimate medical needs. Too bad that money is gone. All those killed by guns in the last dozen years were either killed by registered or un-registered guns…didn’t matter one way or the other….they are dead, and the registry didn’t help them……..but how many lives could have been saved by spending that money on medicine? 100-1000 times more…
American-style healthcare is not perfect…but neither is Canadian-style. Somewhere in the middle is right. Two-tier medicine already exsists today. Those with money can easily get immeadiate treatment now. The precious dollars needed to fund our healthcare budget is being wasted by administrators and people who can already afford health insurance.
Time we draw a line in the sand and demand the people who can pay for health insurnace, do so.
Ah, memories…
This is just like when Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter started calling us Soviet Canuckistan.
Anyone want an interesting comparison and to see this “bureacracy” at work should check this page out:
http://www.grahamazon.com/sp/compare.php
From Yahoo news this evening:
Health-care spending grew 6.9 percent to about $1.99 trillion from about $1.86 trillion in 2004, a slower pace than the 7.9 percent increase a year earlier, the report by the National Health Statistics Group found. The increase outpaced a 3.4 percent rise in inflation in 2005.
The statistics group is part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the single largest payer for U.S. health care.
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