Michael Moore's 'Sicko' Scrutinizes Canada's Healthcar

[geoffrey]

We have a great system, so why do the Americans hate it so. I broke my ankle in three places, went right to the hospital and had it looked at right away. This in a small town hospital. What is wrong with that?

Hospitals in the States would have looked at it, x-rayed and casted it regardless of your income level. It's the law, they can't turn away a serious injury, regardless of ability to pay. What exactly more do you get in Canada? And how much does that cost?

If you needed surgery, ok, then you'd be paying in the States (well, your insurance would pay). In Canada, they'd cover the surgery, but you'd pay out of pocket (or your private insurer, damned Canadians getting better care than others, right?) for your rehab, hospital stay, cast (oh yes, they don't provide those here), painkillers, ect. ect..

What you get for free in Canada isn't much more than what you can mooch from charity hospitals in the States. Like I said, in an emergency, they have to take you anyways.

Hmmm...

Was that surgery worth the hundreds of thousands in extra taxes you've payed for health care over your lifetime? Nahhhh.

Again though, the US way isn't the answer. They have issues down there too, as many as we do. Europe has the solutions, they've figured it out. Now let's get to it!

[marcinmoka]

One thing commonly overlooked is how "free" health care (even in regards to walk in clinics and family physicians) promotes efficiency in the long run since it is often a form of preventative medicine, which recognizes (and treats...hopefully) the inexpensive medical molehills before they turn into pricey medical mountains.

But on the flip side, one major recommendation I would promote is at least a token "user fee", nothing serious, but perhaps $10 or $20 contribution. Such a price would be low enough to encourage people to visit a clinic early on, while hopefully dissuading the hordes of hypochondriacs who visit a clinic for nothing more than a simple cold, only to hear "drink plenty of fluids and get rest" but while taking up precious resources and shifting more pertinent problems to the back burner.

[geoffrey]

One thing commonly overlooked is how "free" health care (even in regards to walk in clinics and family physicians) promotes efficiency in the long run since it is often a form of preventative medicine, which recognizes (and treats...hopefully) the inexpensive medical molehills before they turn into pricey medical mountains.

I disagree. There is no such thing. Preventive medicine would be having the government pay for my physio on my leg injury instead of paying for the coronary bypass from me not being active, for example. Doesn't happen in Canada.

There is no motive to save money ever in government (other than a more senior government manager wanting more money for his pet project). The government will just deduct more from your paycheque if health care costs more next year.

The cost of needless visits to ER's (hangnails, common colds) far outweights the cost of a prevention campaign with the same results long-term IMO.

But on the flip side, one major recommendation I would promote is at least a token "user fee", nothing serious, but perhaps $10 or $20 contribution. Such a price would be low enough to encourage people to visit a clinic early on, while hopefully dissuading the hordes of hypochondriacs who visit a clinic for nothing more than a simple cold, only to hear "drink plenty of fluids and get rest" but while taking up precious resources and shifting more pertinent problems to the back burner.

It costs about $100 per visit to a family doctor... to the system that is. An ER visit will run you $300-400ish. We need more family doctors. Unfortnately, they are driving our taxi cabs.

Sweden I know uses the system you propose. Others likely do too. It is effective.

Solution one. Accept and assist in upgrading foreign credientials regardless of what the protectionist Doctor's 'unions' want. More doctors mean lower doctor salaries. One of the factors in the efficency of Europe's system is a healthy supply of doctors, forcing down salary rates.

[Riverwind]

Solution one. Accept and assist in upgrading foreign credientials regardless of what the protectionist Doctor's 'unions' want. More doctors mean lower doctor salaries. One of the factors in the efficency of Europe's system is a healthy supply of doctors, forcing down salary rates.

I would not want a 'doctor' from some third world university working in our system without having his/her credentials thoughly examined.

The problem with unaccredited doctors is due to the lack of intern positions for doctors that did not graduate from Canadian universities. The solution is to have the governments provide more funding for intern positions. Lowering our standards is a bad idea.

[gc1765]

The cost of needless visits to ER's (hangnails, common colds) far outweights the cost of a prevention campaign with the same results long-term IMO.

I dunno, I wonder how many lives are saved by screening for cancer (as just one example)? And how many people would get screened if it cost them money?

[SkyhookJackson]

I've been following this conversation and feel compelled to throw in my 2 cents. I am a 58 year old, uninsured American. I am uninsured because I am self-employed and do not own a gold mine. In the United States, aging and/or any kind of illness puts you in an elite class for the insurance companies. It's called "We Don't Want You." They jack up the premiums until you're forced to give up the policy. It's called "cream skimming." They happily take money from the young and healthy, then cut their chances of loss once you hit a certain age or file a claim. The 47 million uninsured number is, IMHO, low. I went to an auction preview one time and quizzed all the other antique dealers there about where they bought their health insurance. To a person, all were unable to afford insurance. Insured people (in this case the ones making health care policy and generally "dissing" universal care) always assume uninsured people SOMEHOW get care. That is untrue. I won't bore you with the details, but I'll tell you I'm darn lucky to be alive. Remember the poor woman in California who died in pain on an emergency room floor while staff looked on and the janitor cleaned up around her? She was uninsured. I could write books of stories of uninsured people, their suffering, their bankruptcies, their foreclosed homes. Michael Moore is my hero. I thank him from the bottom of my heart for focusing on people WITH insurance. Insured Americans are living in a fool's paradise to say the least. They only THINK they're covered. The point of my post is to let all Canadians know that the majority of Americans are envious of their health care system. The old meme of "waiting periods" doesn't ring true to us because we've waited, too. We're not only waiting, we're suffering. Just one question. Do Canadians find it necessary to hold bake sales and car washes to benefit people with medical bills? You can find at least one on any weekend in the area where I live. Buy a cake, pay for chemotherapy. Right.

[margrace]

Skyhookjackson, thank you for your post. A Canadian friend who believes in the American system and I were discussing the pro's and cons. She said she would talk to her American friends and prove me wrong. When she came back with her findings, she found for instance, that a friends mother under the age of 65 who could no longer work and had no company insurance was paying $800 a month for coverage. There was nothing else available for her. Thats a lot of money for instance in my case where I never earned over $15,000 a year.

She found lots of other situations backing up what you are saying. I watched a show on the American deep south and found that the person who went down to film it had to buy an old clucker of a car just to get to talk to the people. No one seemed to be able to afford anything that was under 10 years old.

I think the people we get on here defending the American system as versus ours with their complete misunderstanding of how our system works are either very rich or very nieve.

[Renegade]

Was that surgery worth the hundreds of thousands in extra taxes you've payed for health care over your lifetime? Nahhhh.

"hundreds of thousands in extra taxes"???? Are you kiddng me? Given that she has said that she has never earned more than $15000 in any year and was not working for part of her adult life, she would have contributed almost nothing toward her medical costs. The reason she is so defensive for the system is that it is a great deal for her. Complete coverage at virtually no expense.

[guyser]

No, mostly we believe the wait time registries from each province, readily available for download. Pretending it doesn't exist won't improve the wait times.

http://www.waittimealliance.ca/wait_times.htm

Thanks for the link , and thanks for making my point.Those are very manageable wait times. Pretty damn good.

I'm sure some do, but most don't make any such calls, and even when they do, they don't have to wait months for the procedure.

Like us then? Ok , so we are equal on that one.

So some dont make calls, I can agree with that. I guess when the bill comes in the mail they might wish they had called. (for the major stuff that is)

[guyser]

I've been following this conversation and feel compelled to throw in my 2 cents. I am a 58 year old, uninsured American. I am uninsured because I am self-employed and do not own a gold mine. In the United States, aging and/or any kind of illness puts you in an elite class for the insurance companies. It's called "We Don't Want You." They jack up the premiums until you're forced to give up the policy. It's called "cream skimming." They happily take money from the young and healthy, then cut their chances of loss once you hit a certain age or file a claim. The 47 million uninsured number is, IMHO, low.

Thanks for your input Skyhook. It gives a balance to what we are discussing here. I suspect there are pplenty who concur with you.

As for that woman who died in Cali , if it is the same one I read about, there were extenuating circumstances with her and is not typical of what would happen, poor rich black or white.

[margrace]

Was that surgery worth the hundreds of thousands in extra taxes you've payed for health care over your lifetime? Nahhhh.

"hundreds of thousands in extra taxes"???? Are you kiddng me? Given that she has said that she has never earned more than $15000 in any year and was not working for part of her adult life, she would have contributed almost nothing toward her medical costs. The reason she is so defensive for the system is that it is a great deal for her. Complete coverage at virtually no expense.

I worked my whole adult life from the time my husband died and I had 4 children to raise. I raised my own food including the meat end of it. I worked full time and then worked part time. I did not have much choice of a job because there were few available in my area. But I could get my own heat and food which amounts to a lot. When I started working I was paid $28 a week. No health care either.

[Renegade]

I worked my whole adult life from the time my husband died and I had 4 children to raise. I raised my own food including the meat end of it. I worked full time and then worked part time. I did not have much choice of a job because there were few available in my area. But I could get my own heat and food which amounts to a lot. When I started working I was paid $28 a week. No health care either.

So, does that background contradict anything I've stated?

[bush_cheney2004]

... But I could get my own heat and food which amounts to a lot. When I started working I was paid $28 a week. No health care either.

That bears repeating...no health care. You were self reliant and independent.

[SkyhookJackson]

Hmmmm . . . since when is "no health care" a good thing? It's fine to nurse a cold, patch up a cut with butterfly bandaids and super glue, but if the old appendix goes you're in deep, deep trouble no matter how self reliant you are. I have yet to see a copy of "Surgery For Dummies." The problem with American-style health care can be summed up in 1 word: profit. The insurance companies are not philanthropic institutions, they're financial giants that generate megabucks for their investors. As Michael Moore has pointed out, that is their job . . . their fiduciary responsibility. The only way they can make huge profits is to take in large piles of cash while paying out much, much less. If it wasn't for the profit motive and the odd $125,000,000 million dollar CEO salaries (United Healthcare), access to health care might be available to everyone in the U.S. I really hope you Canadians have the good sense to tweak your system and improve it before taking a nose dive (some might say death dive) into "for profit" health care. By the way, I intended to mention in my first posting that I'm not a "welfare queen" or moocher of any sort. That's another stereotype offered up about the uninsured. I've worked since I was 16 and paid taxes every year. Up until 3 years ago I could afford health insurance, even though there was a huge deductible and it didn't cover any out patient, preventive procedures. Actually, the U.S. has gotten so screwed up in almost every way, I just learned yesterday I paid more in taxes last year - my worst in 2 decades - than Rupert Murdoch did and he just purchased the Wall Street Journal for 5 billion dollars. Sorry to be so long winded, but the health care issue drives me nuts.

[Renegade]

I am a 58 year old, uninsured American. I am uninsured because I am self-employed and do not own a gold mine.

Out of curiousity, how much does insurnace cost you (if you actually purchased it)?

[bush_cheney2004]

Hmmmm . . . since when is "no health care" a good thing? It's fine to nurse a cold, patch up a cut with butterfly bandaids and super glue, but if the old appendix goes you're in deep, deep trouble no matter how self reliant you are. I have yet to see a copy of "Surgery For Dummies." The problem with American-style health care can be summed up in 1 word: profit.

The sign on the doctor's wall said, "Payment is due when services are rendered". Mama always paid in cash...they liked that.

We never called it "health care"....and it is all about profit....not health care welfare. Now we have people with an entitlement mentality..as if they have a RIGHT to a triple organ transplant.

[SkyhookJackson]

I am a 58 year old, uninsured American. I am uninsured because I am self-employed and do not own a gold mine.

Out of curiousity, how much does insurnace cost you (if you actually purchased it)?

The last time we got a quote it was $12,000 a year with a $5,000 deductible per person (2 people). Of that, no out patient services were covered and only 80% of in patient costs after the deductible is met. That's way out of reach for us, yet we're too well off to qualify for any government-sponsored program. What is very frustrating is that for all the years we had insurance, they never paid a dime on our behalf. They're thieves, pure and simple. Many people who have insurance get a rude awakening when they hit a major illness. The 80% kicks in and if the whole bill is in the hundreds of thousands, the "insured" person is on the hook for 20% of it. My husband works in a banking/real estate related field (also self-employed) and just this week he worked with people being foreclosed on for medical bills and other people refinancing their home because of illness. It's a terribly stressful way to live. Don't fall for it.

[SkyhookJackson]

Hmmmm . . . since when is "no health care" a good thing? It's fine to nurse a cold, patch up a cut with butterfly bandaids and super glue, but if the old appendix goes you're in deep, deep trouble no matter how self reliant you are. I have yet to see a copy of "Surgery For Dummies." The problem with American-style health care can be summed up in 1 word: profit.

The sign on the doctor's wall said, "Payment is due when services are rendered". Mama always paid in cash...they liked that.

We never called it "health care"....and it is all about profit....not health care welfare. Now we have people with an entitlement mentality..as if they have a RIGHT to a triple organ transplant.

You must be Donald Trump posting incognito - few people can foot the bill for a major medical procedure. What is your solution if people can't afford to pay cash and can't afford to purchase insurance? There's way too many of us to just put us on an iceberg and send us out to sea. I think a country is only as good as it treats its least well off. The United States is failing miserably on that point and not just as it relates to health care. College tuition is up 35% in 5 years, jobs have gone to China and it's a free-for-all at the southern border.

[Riverwind]

What is very frustrating is that for all the years we had insurance, they never paid a dime on our behalf.

That is why so many people are naive when it comes to private health insurance companies. They think because their premiums are managable today that they will always be manageble but that is not the case. Anyone who has an individual policy and makes a claim will find that their insurance rates will rise rapidly to the point where they are unaffordable.

[bush_cheney2004]

You must be Donald Trump posting incognito - few people can foot the bill for a major medical procedure. What is your solution if people can't afford to pay cash and can't afford to purchase insurance? There's way too many of us to just put us on an iceberg and send us out to sea. I think a country is only as good as it treats its least well off. The United States is failing miserably on that point and not just as it relates to health care. College tuition is up 35% in 5 years, jobs have gone to China and it's a free-for-all at the southern border.

The US treats the least well-off with coverage. Millions of Americans have already solved the problem you describe...it is called "Spending Down" to qualify for Medicaid and state programs. College tuition is a luxury....one must make choices....an advanced degree or a new kidney..seems simple enough to me.

Life is about choices...even when it comes to buying "health care".

[jdobbin]

You must be Donald Trump posting incognito - few people can foot the bill for a major medical procedure. What is your solution if people can't afford to pay cash and can't afford to purchase insurance? There's way too many of us to just put us on an iceberg and send us out to sea. I think a country is only as good as it treats its least well off. The United States is failing miserably on that point and not just as it relates to health care. College tuition is up 35% in 5 years, jobs have gone to China and it's a free-for-all at the southern border.

I think the name of the poster should give you a clue as to where they are coming from. I believe their response is "tough luck." Some might call it social Dawinism but that would be against their creationism roots.

I'm sorry to hear that in the position that you're in. It seems what is lacking is a little sympathy for you and millions of others. However, what we see is the blame game. Somehow you are responsible for your own bad habits, bad genes and bad luck. But don't you dare try to commit suicide or have someone assist you do it to spare your pain or others: That would be a sin.

[bush_cheney2004]

I think the name of the poster should give you a clue as to where they are coming from. I believe their response is "tough luck." Some might call it social Dawinism but that would be against their creationism roots.

No, my actual response explains where I am "coming from"...speak for yourself.

My spouse administers federal/state programs for low/no income health care, disabilities, and long term care for the elderly. You don't have a clue from your vantage point, and even Canadians are bitching about changes for the CHA.

Think Canada is health care paradise?...guess again:

In Canada, immigrants are admitted for their professional expertise and anticipated contribution to the workforce. In 2004 we admitted 204 000 landed immigrants and 31 000 refugees. Physicians in this country may be surprised to know that, despite Canada's universal health care system, many who reside here legally are never granted public health insurance. Other immigrants and refugees are granted coverage, but only after long delays: 4 provinces impose a mandatory 3-month waiting period — but in our experience, our patients' wait has averaged 2.1 years. Many others reside in limbo: between 1997 and 2004 Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicated 228 000 refugee claims, approving only 40%. Rejected refugee claimants who continue to reside in Canada while they pursue legal avenues of appeal lose their eligibility for public insurance, either provincial or federal.

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/174/9/1253

[SkyhookJackson]

You must be Donald Trump posting incognito - few people can foot the bill for a major medical procedure. What is your solution if people can't afford to pay cash and can't afford to purchase insurance? There's way too many of us to just put us on an iceberg and send us out to sea. I think a country is only as good as it treats its least well off. The United States is failing miserably on that point and not just as it relates to health care. College tuition is up 35% in 5 years, jobs have gone to China and it's a free-for-all at the southern border.

I think the name of the poster should give you a clue as to where they are coming from. I believe their response is "tough luck." Some might call it social Dawinism but that would be against their creationism roots.

I'm sorry to hear that in the position that you're in. It seems what is lacking is a little sympathy for you and millions of others. However, what we see is the blame game. Somehow you are responsible for your own bad habits, bad genes and bad luck. But don't you dare try to commit suicide or have someone assist you do it to spare your pain or others: That would be a sin.

LOL - bingo! I wasn't going to mention the obvious in an attempt at civility.

[mikedavid00]

It costs about $100 per visit to a family doctor... to the system that is. An ER visit will run you $300-400ish. We need more family doctors. Unfortnately, they are driving our taxi cabs.

Lol.. The CBC and MSM has really gotten to you eh?

We don't need a gun registry, we need a Doctor registry. You can sign up for the stoneage-cultured doctors, and I will choose Dr. Bernstein or Dr. James.

That will make things fair. Go fast track those doctors, but YOU sign up that you would like to be treated by them. I will keep myself off that list and wait for a Canadian/American doctor.

Does that sound like a good deal?

[bush_cheney2004]

LOL - bingo! I wasn't going to mention the obvious in an attempt at civility.

But I did mention the obvious..why have millions of others with less income than you figured it out?