American with questions about Canadian health care

[guyser]

That's funny. When I was out of the country for a year, I came back and had no medicare until the waiting period expired.

Yes well, dont get confused, its only shady playing fast and loose with facts . He is wrong of course.

[cybercoma]

I'm not sure what to do with this story. I guess I'd like to see a continuous study of people who'd been through the system - publish regularly and categorized by type of visit - that would be good.

Longitudinal studies are expensive and hard to accomplish. They're quite rare and Harper's government continues to eliminate funding for the ones that StatsCan have been doing. I wouldn't hold my breath.

Even better would be for the average person to name this survey - or some institution that regularly surveyed healthcare - immediately when asked how they measure the performance of the system. That would be really great.

By name, I suppose you mean "take this survey."

I agree.

Again. Very expensive. There's confidentiality issues due to health information. There's lots of ethical and practical hoops that need to be hopped through to accomplish this.

Nevertheless, I agree with how useful it would be.

[Smallc]

Really ? Maybe the cost itself isn't important, but increases are probably important to know as well as the reasons for increases.

If you need bypass surgery, right now, it shouldn't matter to you the cost. That was my point.

[Shady]

That's funny. When I was out of the country for a year, I came back and had no medicare until the waiting period expired.

Yes, because you're not trying to scam the system.

[Michael Hardner]

Longitudinal studies are expensive and hard to accomplish. They're quite rare and Harper's government continues to eliminate funding for the ones that StatsCan have been doing. I wouldn't hold my breath.

That's not the problem. Reports like this exist today - but nobody cares.

By name, I suppose you mean "take this survey."

I agree.

No - I mean if you went to people (as I have done) and asked them "how would you measure the performance of the Canadian healthcare system ?" they wouldn't stare at you as though you just asked how to measure the performance of leprechauns.

They would say "CIHI" or somesuch. (That is the department that does this today) And everyone would watch the stats closely and would express concern if they didn't improve.

Again. Very expensive. There's confidentiality issues due to health information. There's lots of ethical and practical hoops that need to be hopped through to accomplish this.

Nevertheless, I agree with how useful it would be.

Posh. It exists now. We need to change our culture to one that pays attention to service levels. And this means liberals above all. My fellow liberals can only defend the system, as evidenced on many threads here. We should never be satisfied with 'good enough'. There is technology and the opportunity to make things so much better than they are.

[Michael Hardner]

If you need bypass surgery, right now, it shouldn't matter to you the cost. That was my point.

Ok. Well, I guess that's true enough.

[Moonlight Graham]

Unfortunately, I'm not going to give all of your questions the depth that they deserve, but I'll give you some brief answers that reflect my opinion only.

BTW what province(s) are your observations referring to?

[cybercoma]

ON and NB.

[bush_cheney2004]

Another feel good story about Canadian health care and the gatekeepers who control access:

An eight-year-old boy with a rare childhood disease has been refused care by at least one Canadian specialist because his mother took him to the U.S. for a treatment not approved in B.C.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/12/14/bc-specialistdenied.html

[guyser]

Another feel good story about Canadian health care and the gatekeepers who control access:

Although disturbing (moreso in the way it was reported) all Doctors in all first world countries have the right to refuse patients further access to them.