Are women in danger of losing their abortion rights?

[guyser]

How many CanadiansAmericans must wait to see a specialist or even a GP? How much do they expend in search costs? How many CanadiansAmericans suffer various medical problems because they cannot see a medical praticioner in a timely fashion?

The CanadianAmerican system imposes private costs on CanadiansAmericans that appear in no budget and are not included in any GDP calculation.

Goes both ways.Perhaps not equally....

[cybercoma]

There are tremendous private costs in the Canadian system, but they are borne privately.

30% of healthcare costs in Canada are private. It's not a mystery; it has been figured out already.

[August1991]

30% of healthcare costs in Canada are private. It's not a mystery; it has been figured out already.

Cybercoma, I think you are referring to elective procedures not covered by Canada's state-insurance system. (For example, cosmetic surgery.) The 30% stat may also include dental work since in some cases, that is classified as a medical cost.

To my knowledge, no one has made an attempt to estimate the costs imposed, for example, by wait times or becuase some 5 million Canadians do not have a family doctor. This situation imposes a burden on individuals and they bear the costs. These non-monetary costs are not accounted for anywhere and certainly don't appear in any government budget.

In Canada's health system, a politician or bureaucrat can reduce a budget by $1000 and register this as a "wise decision" even though it may impose $10,000 of private costs on individuals through longer wait times, or greater search costs. We just don't know what these costs are.

----

To use the example in this thread, NB and PEI have smaller health budgets because they don't have to pay for so many abortions. OTOH, this smaller health budget comes at greater private costs and hassles for women who most go elsewhere for this procedure.

Our health system is filled with such examples. In simple terms, there is a great disconnect. When politicians and bureaucrats make decisions, they don't see the full impact of what they are doing.

Edited April 25, 2011 by August1991

[Guest American Woman]

To my knowledge, no one has made an attempt to estimate the costs imposed, for example, by wait times or becuase some 5 million Canadians do not have a family doctor. This situation imposes a burden on individuals and they bear the costs. These non-monetary costs are not accounted for anywhere and certainly don't appear in any government budget.

In Canada's health system, a politician or bureaucrat can reduce a budget by $1000 and register this as a "wise decision" even though it may impose $10,000 of private costs on individuals through longer wait times, or greater search costs. We just don't know what these costs are.

This might be one such study; it may pertain to some of the issues that have been raised: The economic cost of wait times in Canada

[bush_cheney2004]

This might be one such study; it may pertain to some of the issues that have been raised: The economic cost of wait times in Canada

Very interesting....I wouldn't have guessed that diagnostic imaging (e.g. MRI) would dominate wait time cost estimates for the 4 areas studied until it is pointed out that 85% of the care population is impacted compared to fewer older Canadians needing joint replacement or cataract surgery.

MRIs and other diagnostics have become the choke point for routine procedures, increasing wait time costs.

[icman]

Plenty of people "without the means of financing it" get healthcare. They get it paid for the same way Canadians do.

It's good that Canadians are happy with their system, but fact is, it's not ranked that high on the universal healthcare scale worldwide, and most Americans hope we'll get a different system when we finally figure it out. I'm sure you'll see that as an insult, but it's not meant to be that way. It's meant as an observation, and a recognition that different nations have different desires regarding how they do things. Our system is a mess in a lot of ways right now, for too many people, but it's very good for more people, and therein lies a big part of the problem of restructuring it. Understandably.

The fact that your system has a "burden on it" speaks for itself. There are different ways of looking at "dire," however. Someone's medical procedure might not in itself be "dire," but it may keep them off of work until it's taken care of, and that may create a problem; the lost wages for an extended period of time are a cost to the afflicted person, even if the medical procedure is not. And they have no choice. Wait or go elsewhere and pay.

Our systems both have their positives and negatives, but too often it seems as if people from both sides pit one system against the other to pat themselves on the back and reassure themselves that they have the superior system. Our system isn't "broken" just because it's not the same as yours. Would you agree with me if I said your system was broken based on many Americans' standards? I hardly think so, yet you think nothing of claiming what our "medical innovations and technologies" have been "at the expense of." Your system gives some people healthcare that they wouldn't otherwise have and our "innovations and technologies" have given some people healthcare that they otherwise wouldn't have. That's a fact.

I want a system that will provide...

1) Universal access - no-one is left without needed care

2) Quality Care

i) Efficient and accurate diagnoses

ii) High recovery rates

iii) Fast resolutions

3) Efficient care - the least consumer cost per capita without sacrificing either access or quality

4) A focus on prevention (which should come out of attempts to make #3, but it never seems to in Canada or the US.)

I also don't want efficiencies being sucked up by companies whose goals are not to improve the above properties of the system, but to suck as much profit from the system as possible. Efficiencies need to accrue to the taxpayer or the patient.

[TimG]

I also don't want efficiencies being sucked up by companies whose goals are not to improve the above properties of the system, but to suck as much profit from the system as possible. Efficiencies need to accrue to the taxpayer or the patient.

Are you fine with inefficiencies created by arbitrary union work rules or rediculous benefit packages? If not you should recognized that a government run system cannot be efficient as long as unions have monopoly on care.

[icman]

Are you fine with inefficiencies created by arbitrary union work rules or rediculous benefit packages? If not you should recognized that a government run system cannot be efficient as long as unions have monopoly on care.

No and no. But at the end of the day, if there will be waste, I want to know that the waste will benefit local economies because it will get spent through rather than pad the bank accounts of people already so rich that they couldn't count their money in their lifetime. I would also rather 100,000 workers have good benefits than 1000 executives use the same amount of cash to pad their bonuses.

[TimG]

I would also rather 100,000 workers have good benefits than 1000 executives use the same amount of cash to pad their bonuses.

Typically class warfare BS.

1) The cost of management is insignificant compared to the cost of labour.

2) The benefits demanded by healthcare unions are grotesque and there is absolutely no justification for them.

3) You just admitted you don't give a damn about efficiency so stop pretending you do.

[RNG]

Are you fine with inefficiencies created by arbitrary union work rules or rediculous benefit packages? If not you should recognized that a government run system cannot be efficient as long as unions have monopoly on care.

And that is exactly why I want publicly paid, but privately run hospitals. They are so inefficient, largely because of bloated bureaucracies and union stuff. Get rid of the bureaucrats and the unions and health care could be much cheaper. And the bloody personal injury lawyers will keep it in check.

[icman]

Typically class warfare BS.

3) You just admitted you don't give a damn about efficiency so stop pretending you do.

I did no such thing. If you keep trying to put your words in people's mouths, you'll get them bit off.

I care about efficiency. But I'm not a moron and I understand that you can only make a human edifice reach a certain level of efficiency.

So, bust the unions, make all staff work at 100% productivity with no delivery errors, make all management work at 100% productivity with no management errors, reduce all management salaries to no more than 15% more than their subordinates' all the way up the ladder, and no bonuses for anyone. Also, stockholder returns = 0, because to be efficient, all revenue must be invested back into the organization. Oh yeah, and no more than 4 layers of management between the managing director and the janitor. And one more cherry blossom, delete all budget for workplace safety and health. After all, keeping the staff alive and preventing workplace injury is too expensive, and each individual's responsibility anyway. Hell, while we're at it, lets repeal all labour legislation so that we can force people to pay the organization for the privilege of working rather than paying them at all. Ah, the perfect health care organization. Clearly, it will attract all the best people to fill its ranks, and investors will be lining up to fund it.

Is that the efficiency you're looking for? I have news for you, it won't ever happen. There is only so much efficiency you can squeeze out of any system, and even then, you can never arrive at the theoretical maximum - at some point the marginal returns are not worth the investment needed to further squeeze. The choice in designing a health care system either as private or public or some combination, after service delivery questions are answered, is about whose pockets get lined when money falls out of the system. The fight that privateers are fighting is ONLY about ensuring that it's their pockets and only their pockets that get lined.

If your only argument is "You're a class warfare conspiracy lefty loonie crackpot", well, that says more about you than me.

[cybercoma]

I would like to see the candidate running on the platform, "let's get rid of the unions!" Don't be absurd.

[Molly]

But that Saskatchewan woman, who had legal access to an abortion all throughout her term if she wished it, should not go unpunished for her actions.

I'm kinda thinking that being in a sorry enough mental/emotional state to put a gun in your own vagina and pull the trigger is punishment enough.

Whaddya think? Have you ever been that distraught? I know I sure as heck haven't.

[Rick]

"I'm not ashamed to say that, in caucus, I have more pro-life MPs supporting me than supporting Stockwell Day."

-Stephen Harper 2002

That alone should tell everyone where Harper himself stands on this issue and how he would procede given the chance...

[Bryan]

MRIs and other diagnostics have become the choke point for routine procedures, increasing wait time costs.

I haven't seen these mythical wait times yet. I got referred for an MRI a couple of months ago, and I was able to get it done at St. Boniface Hospital the same week. Place wasn't even busy either, there was one other patient in the waiting area.

[Bryan]

I would like to see the candidate running on the platform, "let's get rid of the unions!" Don't be absurd.

Public sector unions? I would vote for that, no matter what party it was.

[Molly]

That alone should tell everyone where Harper himself stands on this issue and how he would procede given the chance...

Pft! His tolerance of the anti-choice caucus members- folks like Trost and Bruinooge- says it all.

A candidate who pulled the same sort of mid-campaign stunt as Trost with any other game-changing policy might have found themselves ejected from the party. Kent, for instance, heard the riot act fast when his tongue took him where CPC candidates dare not go. Trost argued about it, and even when 'corrected' made no categorical retraction.

Private members billson the subject are allowed to see the light of day.

There is no doubt, Rick, and never was.

[TimG]

A candidate who pulled the same sort of mid-campaign stunt as Trost with any other game-changing policy might have found themselves ejected from the party.

Why? Are not people allowed to have opinions on abortion that are not the same as the party? You seem to expecting the CPC to adher to a conformatic which you do not expect from any other party. Should Layton expel MPs that want to scrap the gun registry.

[Molly]

Why? Are not people allowed to have opinions on abortion that are not the same as the party? You seem to expecting the CPC to adher to a conformatic which you do not expect from any other party. Should Layton expel MPs that want to scrap the gun registry.

What? !

I might expect Trost to have run seriously afoul of the PMO particularly because his comments are a clear statement that the 'secret agenda' is alive and well, and not very secret!

[Guest American Woman]

I haven't seen these mythical wait times yet. I got referred for an MRI a couple of months ago, and I was able to get it done at St. Boniface Hospital the same week. Place wasn't even busy either, there was one other patient in the waiting area.

I posted a link to the study that bush-cheney was commenting on, and it's not based on what one person has or hasn't personally seen. No one ever said the wait times existed everywhere, or that they were the same everywhere that they do exist. You might want to read the results of the study. It was prepared by The Centre for Spatial Economics for the Canadian Medical Association, so I think it might be more inclusive than what you've observed.

[Alan]

Interesting debate going on here. Where I wouldn't necessarily want a woman to choose abortion as an option, I do respect her right to choose. However, hopefully, more and more women will choose to seek other options.

[fellowtraveller]

Why? Are not people allowed to have opinions on abortion that are not the same as the party?

Only in the Tory party.

Note that on the same sex marriage vote passed which allowed SSM, only the CPC allowed their members to vote as they wished. The NDP was whipped and so was the Liberal cabinet. Despite being an issue of conscience, none was permitted.

Harper has said umpteen countless times he has no intention of opening the abortion debate, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. Note that Chretien and Martin were both personally against abortion, but managed to keep their pieholes shut on the topic. So has Harper, except when pressed to confirm yet again it is not on any legislative calendar. All of them knew there were simply no net votes to be had by talking about it or changing anything, because pretty much every voting age Canadian has a strong and unchanging opinion on the right to choose, and these opinions cross party lines rather freely.

The Canadian situation is quite clever, and I'm not sure who authored it way back when -Trudeau perhaps? There is no effective 'law' on abortion, which really limits anti-abortion times from mounting a court challenge, since there is little to challenge when there is no case law. This came about because the govt FRAMES abortion as a medical procedure, not a moral alone. That takes a ton of heat off the provinces who can then fund and provide abortions upon recommendation of a physician, who makes that determination in consultation with his patient, not with a church or interest group. Clever and effective.

[icman]

I'm kinda thinking that being in a sorry enough mental/emotional state to put a gun in your own vagina and pull the trigger is punishment enough.

Whaddya think? Have you ever been that distraught? I know I sure as heck haven't.

Perhaps if there hadn't been a second victim involved, and the likely target of the attack, I would be more sympathetic. Does your point include crinimally insane murderers getting a pass because their mental/emotional state is punishment enough? And if not, please explain how this woman is so special.

[cybercoma]

Interesting debate going on here. Where I wouldn't necessarily want a woman to choose abortion as an option, I do respect her right to choose. However, hopefully, more and more women will choose to seek other options.

Don't come in here spouting your reasonableness mumbo jumbo. We want partisan hackery!

[RNG]

Don't come in here spouting your reasonableness mumbo jumbo. We want partisan hackery!

Yeah, can't even hurl insults or scorn for post like that - so quit it!