Editorial on Medicare

[Toro]

Deleted.

Sorry. Paid content.

Thanks August.

[August1991]

Greg won't be happy that you're violating copyright (and nor with the WSJ). You should provide a small quote and then link. It helps if you say why the article is worth reading.

[Toro]

Thanks for telling me. I'll inform him.

[August1991]

Too bad, it was a good article. The reference to the private Copeman clinic to open in Vancouver gets to the heart of the issue. Health unions and medical associations ultimately would object to major reform in Canada.

[Mad_Michael]

Too bad, it was a good article.  The reference to the private Copeman clinic to open in Vancouver gets to the heart of the issue.  Health unions and medical associations ultimately would object to major reform in Canada.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not quite correct. You have your bogeymen mixed up here. Certainly the healthcare unions would oppose any private enterprise, but that is expected - unions are anti-private enterprise and anti-competition.

However, the doctors are generally pro-private market practice in Canada.

The constituentcy that is most solidly supporting the status quo are always the politicians and the bureaucrats and, most importantly, the electorate.

[mirror]

Here is an excellent article about medicare in Canada. The CMC is meeting this week and we will see if they are with their patients OR against them. If they are against them the doctors should be removed from any decision making powers within the medicare system. Actually I have a lot more faith in the nurses than I do the doctors. I wonder if Canadians have any idea how often doctors misdiagnose them.

MDs' group should stand firmly by medicare

[Mad_Michael]

Here is an excellent article about medicare in Canada. The CMC is meeting this week and we will see if they are with their patients OR against them. If they are against them the doctors should be removed from any decision making powers within the medicare system. Actually I have a lot more faith in the nurses than I do the doctors. I wonder if Canadians have any idea how often doctors misdiagnose them.

MDs' group should stand firmly by medicare

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Would you prefer the American model of healthcare?

Doctors are just pill-salesmen now. Cures are not profitable, endless treatments are extremely profitable. I wonder which our free enterprise system prefers to deal with?

[mirror]

Actually from what I have observed Canada has the very best medicare system in the world. Why replace something that is not broken? It may need a bit of tinkering such as reducing doctor's power over the decision-making process. But overall it is a superb system.

[Mad_Michael]

Actually from what I have observed Canada has the very best medicare system in the world. Why replace something that is not broken?  It may need a bit of tinkering such as reducing doctor's power over the decision-making process. But overall it is a superb system.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The only thing worse than someone slagging the Canadian medicare system as socialism and therefore evil, is someone who thinks the Canadian medicare system is the best in the world.

Both views are dangerous. Reality is, Canada's medicare system is mediocre by any standard of comparison and there are huge areas in need of improvement.

Doctor's control over the process is I suppose one thing, though a very unimportant one since I'm suggesting that they have already been long taken out of the loop and turned into pill-salesmen.

Pill-salesmen make poor managers of one's health since for every problem, the only solution is to sell pills.

[Toro]

Okay, here are some statistics from the article

The Fraser Institute has found it takes an average of 17.9 weeks between the time a patient makes an appointment to see a general practitioner and when he can then see a specialist. He will then be treated by a system that ranks 13th out of 22 advanced countries in access to MRI technology; 17th out of 21 in access to CT scanners and seventh out of 22 in access to radiation machines.

When adjusted for the age of its population, Canada vies with Iceland and Switzerland as the highest spender on health care among the 28 most developed nations with universal systems. Dr. David Gratzer, a Toronto physician affiliated with the Manhattan Institute, calculates that a Canadian earning $35,000 a year pays a stunning $7,350 in health-care taxes.

Canada is the only country other than Cuba and North Korea to ban private insurance and private care

[Argus]

Actually from what I have observed Canada has the very best medicare system in the world.

Spent a lot of time travelling the world observing health care systems, did you?

[mirror]

Have you ever seen anything anywhere where the service was improved, and money was saved, through privatization?

[August1991]

Have you ever seen anything anywhere where the service was improved, and money was saved, through privatization?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So, let's nationalize McDonald's, Wal-Mart, the G&M and the Fraser Institute.

It's not hard to run a business when you have direct access to customers' credit cards and bank books. Well, it is, actually.

I was at the doctor's office recently and I was struck when the receptionist used the old, mechanical credit card devices to take an imprint of my health card. Looking around, I realized there were no computers anywhere. Quebec's health system does all its accounting with carbon-imprinted tissue paper. It's like going back to 1975.

That's it. Canada's health system is frozen in a time warp of 1975.

State organizations like the CBC, NASA, CIA, provincial health bureaucracies have no incentive to change because they have no meaningful incentive structure at all. They plod on like a draft horse in a field.

[mirror]

You want a shakeup in the system. Pay doctors if their patients remain healthy and stop paying them if their patients become sick. For one thing you would see drug prescriptions reduced probably by about 90%. A lot of Canadians are now a bunch of over medicated wimps.

[mirror]

Progress made on waiting times

Well according to Heath Minister Dosanjh we have cut patient waiting times, and he is working on improving the other areas of concern. Sure sounds like all our medicare problems will shortly be resolved, eh!

[cybercoma]

Actually from what I have observed Canada has the very best medicare system in the world.

Spent a lot of time travelling the world observing health care systems, did you?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

According to the WHO, Canada spends 8.6% of its GDP on health care. Here's how some of our statistics compare to other countries (who do not have the "very best medicare system in the world".):

• Canada ranks 12th for life expectancy, behind countries like Japan (1st), Australia (2nd) and Greece (7th).
  
• Canada ranks 8th in responsiveness to health needs, behind countries like the US (1st), Switzerland (2nd), Denmark (4th), and Japan (6th)
  
• 17% of Canadian healthcare spending is paid for directly by the patient. In the UK it is only 3% of the total. Patients in the United States only pay 16.6% (56% of all US expenditures are paid privately)
  
• Canadians spend $1783 per capita on healthcare and our system ranks 30th. The UK spends $1303 per capita and ranks 18th. Andorra ranks 4th overall and spends only $1368 per capita.
  

This is all according to the WHO. Of course, I'm certain someone will inform me that they're just as biased as the Fraser Institute.

What we need is a system with the responsiveness of the US, the fiscal prudence of the UK and the access of our current system.

Get to brainstorming.

[cybercoma]

You want a shakeup in the system. Pay doctors if their patients remain healthy and stop paying them if their patients become sick. For one thing you would see drug prescriptions reduced probably by about 90%. A lot of Canadians are now a bunch of over medicated wimps.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This way doctors will refuse to take on unhealthy patients, good idea.

[Argus]

Progress made on waiting times

Well according to Heath Minister Dosanjh we have cut patient waiting times, and he is working on improving the other areas of concern. Sure sounds like all our medicare problems will shortly be resolved, eh! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah. He's lying. What's happened is hospitals are being pressued to reduce waiting lists in key areas so the politicians can trumpet improvement. But improving wait times in those key areas mean everyone else's waiting times grow longer.

In Ontario, the Liberal's solution to "lowering" waiting times is to change how waiting times are calculated. Instead of going from when the patient is referred to a specialist to when the treatment is done now the system only counts when they actually see the specialist to when the treatment is done.

And then the gullible idiots go "Hey, the problem is being solved!"