I these are vast overstatements. The healthcare systems in many of those countries are major drags on their economies. I also think people are confusing a policy that says everyone has healthcare to a policy that delivers great healthcare to everyone.
OK, I guess you just can't help being a dick. A 'red herring?' That's rich. weslinder made an assertion to which you responded about something other than the assertion. If you wanted to make a non-responsive post you should just have skipped quoting him, rather than getting pissy when someone comments that it doesn't make sense in relation to said first post. Interesting. Yet administrative costs are only one component of a healthcare system, and if another system has lower administrative costs but higher costs in other areas that still doesn't make it more efficient. If you compare how our system produces new and successful pharmaceuticals you get the expected result of more efficiency with less regulation. France, for example, while once having a thriving industry hasn't produced a successful new impact drug in 25 or 30 years. If the US government tomorrow decides to mandate an 80% cut in drug prices for US patients won't that affect healthcare? Sure it will. I guess you can explain how an inelastic demand curve and information burdens makes any difference or why regulation is necessary to compensate for that factor, or maybe even where systems like in Europe handle information better or access it better?
Ooh, yes, that would do a lot of good. The lobbyist who have millions to throw at politicians are the ones who ultimately decide. There is no profit in education. There is no profit in nationalized healthcare. There is profit in war. There is perceived profit in buying allies. Henceforth, I doubt things will change any even with a Dem controlled congress. So rejoice, your perceived American utopia is safe. American society is built on helping one another. Our so called Christian society doesn't know the meaning of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "love your neighbors as you love yourself".
...and you can't have a discussion without turning it into a personal b****fest. No, I did not. I pointed out that less regulation does not always equal better outcomes, a point that you don't seem to have grasped yet - and accordingly, an absence of regulation here is not going to necessarily lead to a better outcome.; I know you're resting on a hyper-technicality as you frequently do, so I award you the hyper-technicality award of extreme merit. Congrats. It's not just administrative costs, it's that costs overall are higher, many times higher, per capita - yet without superior results (our life expectancies, etc are not twice as high) - in effect the industry is less productive than a more regulated comparable industrty. As for why near-total inelasticity of demand and lack of perfect information (and natural monopolies which I did not mention but should have) make it more likely that a market will lead to inefficient outcomes - I direct you to any introductory microeconomics text. I never said I understood exactly WHY regulated systems in health care are in effect, more productive - just that it is something that appears to be the case. Nor did I purport to be able to sovle the problem of incentives in the pharma industry.
Sure, Sam. I guess saying: is turning a discussion into a personal b****fest . Actually you said less regulation being more efficient was a myth, then gave a couple of examples where it is true rather than a myth, then tried to disprove weslinder's statement with an example that doesn't match his assertion. Quite on point. I'm sure someone somewhere told you that your personal praise was important. It wasn't me. If you want to be off point then feel free but don't hide behind a 'technicality' defense. That's weak. And yet I've given a specific area of healthcare where the results are dramatically affected by regulation when comparing Europe and the US. Certainly those developments have a significant affect on life expectancies etc. Those developments have been squeezed out of the European systems (see France) while they thrived here, yet Europe still gets those benefits that we must eat as cost. A point that you don't seem to grasp. That system creates cost borne by the US that you are not attributing to it, nor are you applying the benefit where it belongs. That becomes even more stark if one considers that adopting a European system might extinguish said development and reduce everyone's bottom line. What you intuitively feel is the case may not necessarily be true.
What you are talking about is a problem only for insured people. THe costs with "rich" people going to the doctor too much are not as severe as the poor having to use emergency rooms for everything. A relatively recent report showed Houston as having one of the worst health care ratings. The reason was overcrowded emergency rooms being the main source of treatment for too many people.
Does that affect health insurance costs though? My point is about health insurance costs. Who covers the cost of public medicine? I understand that the issue of healthcare is to try to get everyone inusred, but I believe that alot of people aren't insured because of the cost of health insurance which goes back to what is driving up health insurance costs.
Well, Hayes, yes I agree my example didn't precisely match the assertion, rather I believe one that "precisely" matches it is rather difficult, if not impossible, to find since it may not exist. However I did suggest several examples which may cause one to question such an assertion. Which I think you understood. No clue how to respond to this other than obligatory counter-BLAH. In your face! Not entirely sure what you're talking about here, though I surmise you're talking about the pharma R&D context. And trust me, I agree - the French-Western European angle that I believe you are talking about is the classic example of the free rider problem - which, IMO, is one more reason why the Adam Smith approach to health care breaks down at a certain level. And I completely agree with your last sentence, I mean that was my my whole point: with regard to health care markets, what you [one] intuitively feel is the case may not necessarily be true.
Yeah, you guys really need to develop some kind of single payer government funded system. They’re just so much more efficient, and there are ways to design a lot of flexibility into them too, although there are some significant debates about certain kinds of flexibility. On the efficiency issue Canada spends at lest 30% less as a percentage of GDP and we have 100% coverage. Every single citizen is covered. Someone mentioned the Toyota plant that chose Canada because the lower health care costs and skimming the thread I didn’t see a link to that story posted so here it is with an excerpt. Other plants have made the same choice in the past, btw, so this isn’t an isolated case. On the socialism vs. free market issue, let’s try to cut to the heart of it. Governments run all kinds of services for citizens. That’s why we elect them. They run police departments and fire departments and build streets and sewage collection systems etc., and I don’t think many people have a problem with the government doing these things. Imaging a private system doing these things invokes a picture of inefficiency and chaos. Can you imagine having competing private fire departments like they had in the 1800s? Health care is another service that it just makes sense for a government to run. Having a single payer alone cuts about 30% off the costs of the system. There are many ways to do this as well. In Canada each province manages its own system, (although money also comes from the federal government), so each province’s system is slightly different, and in that sense they compete with each other. Think of each province having a single insurance company, and that company is the government. That may be a good quick way to understand our system. Everyone in Canada is covered, but if you move from one province to another you have to get a new health care card from that province. http://www.gov.bc.ca/bvprd/bc/channel.do?action=ministry&channelID=-8387&navId=NAV_ID_province http://www.health.gov.ab.ca/ahcip/AHCIP.html http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/ http://www.gov.mb.ca/health/ http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/program/ohip/ohip_mn.html The Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec welcomes you! http://www.ramq.gouv.qc.ca/index_en.shtml etc. Our health boards are appointed but in theory you could have an elected person head the health care system in a state, for example, and thereby make it directly accountable to the people. Note that these systems provide basic care so cosmetic surgery and other non-essential medical services are private, and what constitutes an essential service varies slightly from province to province. The question of whether basic services can also be provided privately is a hotly debated one, however. If you allowed some doctors to opt out of the system or bill their patients an extra amount on top of what the government was giving them, then the concern here has been that you will create a two tier medical system, one for the rich where a lot of the best doctors would go and be paid extra, and one for the poor. That’s not something Canadians have decided they want but it might be something Americans would be ok with because it allows you to pay for the best doctors if can afford it and yet every citizen is still covered. So you can see that there is a lot of flexibility in how you might set up a single payer system.
So Canada keeps health care costs down by keeping doctor compensation down? Seems like it would be better to be a doctor in America.
I'd like to know which employer you have that pays 100% of your healthcare costs anyway? Ours come straight out of our paycheck, pre-paid if you will, and the company pays half... and yes, it's already near $500/month for a family of 4... closer to $600 with dental & vision added. Good for you if yours is otherwise "free." I'm sure the savings is being passed to someone on the consumer side though. --- Now... just how worried am I about the nationalization of things in general? Let me share... call me paranoid, whatever... here are some of my thoughts, sorry for the "springboard" of sorts in advance: About me paying close to $600 per month for healthcare... I am thankful I can! Is that fair to my family and me? Not sure... but it is better than nothing. But hey, I've already addressed that we did have something in the way of help from the government (which I'll go into more) when in a lower income bracket... and that much government help seems fine... As to the problem mentioned of the ER dilemma: I feel there should be more "free clinics" that should be sponsored by the fat cats... these could be places that big medicine (pharma companies, insurances big dogs, etc.) are made to mandatorily open several such clinics that are open as "non-emergeny care" centers... like the CareNow and "Doc-in-box" companies that are out already... Surely in the metro areas of the nation where the need is greatest, what 50-some cities x 2 or 3 clinics would help lessen the strain on the ER's?? What happens currently, FWIW, is that people go to the ER with a sniffle because they have no doctor, or lack the money (so they claim-and I'm sure some don't, and equally sure some are abusing the system)... and the ER at the hospital is obligated to see the patients... then these patients never pay... Obviously then there must be someone pay the bill. Voila! Your insurance goes up because someone else did not pay their bills. It's not just about the major medical, or surgical, chemo, etc. as many claim. I think some studies indicate that the ER dilemma is the fastest growing problem (besides the obvious issue of more and more elderly are living longer and have more requirements -duh! The population has been growing - and the "industry" has not kept up with demands - instead got fat on profits and did not reinvest into the society by way of more doctor training, hospital building, clinics, etc.) Imagine the strain on the auto industry if there where mechanics that were obligated by law to fix your car even if you couldn't pay them... it would drive the auto industry costs way higher than they currently are... In a free market, what government should do in my view, is legislate so that those who can afford care are left to continue paying for care... and those who cannot should seek care first at these proposed "clinics-powered-by-big medicine" or to the county's already established clinics... free of charge, or little charges to cover the paper work. Surely with all of the profits made in the big medicine world, they can spare something like .001% of it to run these clinics... But reality sets in: The problem still is this... how would you make people go to the doctor for preventative measures? What system do you propose? Anyone? Do we inject chips in each citizen and track the doctor visits? Because that may be coming and/or the way it could happen... And I can't see that as anything but a violation of my rights. As literally practical from one standpoint that may be... it cannot be allowed to happen. Not here. Remember, all of this debate is healthy... but you still can only lead a horse to water, you cannot make him drink... Unless of course, you force him in the water. Also, if the healthcare is nationalized... the "savings" will still be passed on to the consumer... you. Be it taxes directly, or indirectly... we ALL would pay for it... LONG term. I had no problem accepting the help of medicaid, or WIC... because I myself, and my wife, were gainfully employed -having these taxes withheld from our own income... Something that we had both paid in 10 years before we needed them. That's how it is supposed to work. Pay in... use as/if needed. My biggest problem with the whole concept is that while many never use the system for help, and while several may use the system (while still contributing through taxation) there will always be those members of our society who are perfectly able to work and pay taxes in... but they will opt to loaf and mooch off of the government instead, choosing to abuse the system. I feel that this phenomenon would definitely increase if the healthcare system is nationalized accross the board. In a free market system, it behooves everyone in need of something to work for it... the only exceptions made, IMHO, should be for those with disabilities, or elderly, or sick unable to provide for themselves (and the taxes are already there for that). If this country loses sight of working for the things that are worth having, and healthcare is just one major example of something worth having, then this country will truly spiral into a purely socialistic society where no one is allowed to better themselves... Yes I mean allowed. It will not end up both ways. Remember the USSR? Where will life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness be when everyone is discouraged from bettering their lives? It may sound extreme, but nationalizing something accross the board cannot be in the best interest of this country (at least as it stands today). I truly believe that nationalizing healthcare could create a domino effect of indifference among the poor (why try to come up?), spark apathy among the middle-class (fine right where we are!), and lead to a true communistic society similar to that of the USSR... where the rich were a very few, and the few ran the government, and the government hoarded everything for itself, and once that much power was in it's hands it would do whatever it pleased until the whole economy collapsed, and the people as a whole were below world poverty standards. Sound extreme? There is ONE reason the USA has been the beacon of hope to the world... and it is the American Dream. The Dream that anyone can come here and better themselves with hard work. That is not CONDONED much less ENCOURAGED in a socialist environment... even more strictly discouraged in a marxist society. I don't want my government to start advocating that all citizens be their "children," irresponsible for their own health, dependant on the "parent(s)" to solve all of their problems, provide every need, and trap us in a cycle of indifference to the point where corruption is overlooked... a place where society does not care what happens so long as those needs are met by big brother. We've seen that model. What did it prove? Scarier still.. how much do we already ignore what corruption goes on without any real care, so long as we have our needs met? We are not as far away from being what we once despised. Think about it. On the other hand: The history of earth has always had the "haves" and the "have nots" - and having tasted both sides of that as it pertains to healthcare, I can prove that it is possible to come out of the "have nots" with work and perseverance. btw- before somone tries to claim I am segregating into classes or races (again let me disuade you from that notion)... stats indicate that more anglos in the US are under the assistance of welfare currently, and have been for some time... And what I have even had need of falls into a similar category... I know: It may seem like (okay I know it seems like) a rant, or far fetched - the reach that I reach down the road of possibilities - but I just must put those concerns out there when government starts rumoring itself to have a fix for every citizen... There were similar illusions of provision for every citizen made by Karl Marx.... It all works on paper, but.... there is no way it can work on one issue, without them wanting it to reach into every aspect of our lives. And that's just it... it will not work. It goes against the very nature of nature itself. It goes against government, big government... as laws are passed that give government more micro-managing control over the individual citizen, it desires to have even more control over the citizen. That's what socialism does. It grows in power as it pertains to the individual, on its own. That is the opposite of American government historically. Is it so wrong to have "have nots?: To quote Journey... "some will win, some will lose, some are born to sing the blues." You and I both know that big government doesn't like Journey. Big government likes to ignore the facts that there will always be those that "have not" and instead acts like it can provide for all of it's citizens. And if you take more and more contributing citizens out of the mix (as a result of taking away their individual incentives to better themselves, or even be individuals), your society's individuality dies. Remember that to have more than your "comrade" is looked down on almost as a "sin'" (although surely a socialist government will discourage religion too, so it would merely be looked at as a crime). Ever see the movie "The Last Emperor?" Everything that seperates you from another individual is eventually stripped... there is no reason to do more than your share, but you had better do whatever they say your share is... the government is all you need to see to it that you are cared for. Phooey. Surely everyone wishes for no one to go without their basic healthcare needs, but we know that is not going to happen. It never has... as long as there has been time... and who are we to think we will change it? Really, have we all grown so arrogant in these recents decades that we feel we have now arrived at a place that no other civilization could achieve no matter how glorious it once was? To quote a frequent flyer of these miles: "Unlikely" Forgive my caffiene fueled sci-fi adventure here. But this is why lines must be drawn.... by someone. I'd hate to see everything handed to everyone with no incentive to work for it. It would screw up all of the work this country has done to be this country. IMHO (btw-the main word to hinge my whole scenario on is the bolded one... "could")
IROC it, with all due respect, are you Dale Gribble? Your president spies on his citizens, has basically killed the principle of habeus corpus and you're upset about health care reform being a government intrusion?! Are you for real? Using the phrase "America has always been a beacon of hope" and quoting a Journey song makes me wonder if you're not some brilliant creation by Andy Kaufman, or Steven Colbert. It comes down to this, in my view- Is the system working for most people? No. The cost of health care has skyrocketed, while fewer people are getting coverage. You can quote a million Bill O'Reilly talking points and you can't get around that. American health care is inefficient. Change is needed.
Each province decided what doctors and specialists will be paid for different services just like I believe each insurance company in the US decides what it’s going to pay. If a doctor doesn’t like what he/she is being paid he/she can move to a different province, or to the US, and some of them do. If a province starts losing too many doctors or specialists then it has to adjust its rates. Many doctors who go to the US later come back for various reasons, however. For some it’s the cost of insurance and the limitations that it places on them, but the differences in the legal climate in each country is kind of separate issue. Others come back because they don’t like being in a place where they can’t always give their patient the care they need because they don’t have adequate insurance. Coming from a place where every citizen has access to good, basic medical care that’s something many find they just can’t stomach. We also get many doctors from different parts of the world. We had a lot of them come from the UK for a while, and we have a number from South Africa and India, so there are a lot of doctors who come from different parts of the world to work in this system too.
Isn't the system working for most people - I thought the issue was healthcare for all people? Inefficiency has nothing to do with this debate, IMO. Either you think everyone should get coverage or not - single payer systems/ala Canada/ala Europe are not efficient systems either but they DO provide some access to everyone. Well, that DID make me laugh out loud. Have a good weekend, Sam. Fair enough. I like this part of Grizzled's article: "But U.S. taxpayers will suffer because the general public ends up picking up much of the cost of health care for workers who don't get insurance through their jobs." Basically it says it is bad not to have taxpayers pay for everyone's healthcare because companies that would provide healthcare will go somewhere that taxpayers pay for everyone's healthcare rather than somewhere they would have to pay for healthcare. Of course, either way taxpayer's end up paying for that healthcare, lol.
I think I would have to get some kind of answer to the question of what happens to development before I would support a Canadian or European system. Pharmaceutical R&D and other technological development is a big issue for me. Also, access to basic services is one thing but in each of these single payer systems there is a big problem with access for more than basic doctor's visits and also for newer procedures. "A major difference between the Canadian and American health spending is on investment in technology. For example, in terms of medical equipment such as MRI scanners per million people, America ranks first in the world with 19.5 per million people; Canada ranked 13th, with only 4.6 MRI scanners per million people. In terms of CT scanners per million, America ranked third in the world with 29.5 per million while Canada was ranked 16th, with 10.3 per million [8]. This discrepency in technology is a long-standing difference noted long before government polices on health diverged in the 1960s. Canada has more hospital beds per capita and Canadian patients spend more time in hospitals than Americans.The lack of the most recent technology is one of the most common causes of Canadians crossing the border to seek treatment in the United States. However, more poor Americans cross the border into Canada for more effective treatments. To a certain extent sending some patients south is cost effective for Canada. The most expensive medical equipment is also often some of the most specialized." wikipedia This cross border transport becomes a necessity and is also something you see in Europe. But if we also go single payer then where do we go? We lose our drive for innovation and to me that is very bad. Those differences bear out in worse care. For example: "American women are more likely to have cancer than are Canadian women. Yet, as the chart above indicates, the mortality rate of this type of cancer is slightly higher among Canadians than among Americans despite Americans' greater rates of cancer. A similar phenomenon exists with prostate cancer. American men are about 40% more likely to develop prostate cancer than are Canadian men [11], yet the mortality rate is about the same. Such statistics indicate that although Americans are more likely to develop various types of cancers, treatment for these cancers is more effective in America than it is in Canada." (again from Wikipedia) The emphasis on the front end of the problem, that anyone can go see a local doctor, also obscures the back end problems - like access for procedures: VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(CCNMatthews - June 28, 2006) - Two new reports released today provide evidence that waiting for health care has a quantifiable price tag and that wait time benchmarks must be set for all major diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical procedures.Wait lists continue to be one of the most significant problems facing patients in BC's health care system...Not only are too many patients still waiting for their procedures, but a new report called, The Economic Cost of Wait Times in Canada, shows that patients who wait too long for care cost society upwards of $10,000 per patient in terms of lost wages and reduced government tax revenue, as well as increased physician and pharmaceutical costs...The wait times experienced by patients having to wait longer than medically reasonable for treatment impose costs not only on the patients themselves, but also on the economy as a whole." Here's an interesting article on Canada's system - 48% income tax to pay for it? Sheesh. Canadian health care is free and first-class -- if you can wait by Beth Duff-Brown March 19, 2005 The Associated Press TORONTO -- A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies." The patient wasn't dead, according to the doctor who showed the letter to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. But there are many Canadians who claim the long wait for the test and the frigid formality of the letter are indicative of a health system badly in need of emergency care. Americans who flock to Canada for cheap flu shots often come away impressed at the free and first-class medical care available to Canadians, rich or poor. But tell that to hospital administrators constantly having to cut staff for lack of funds, or to the mother whose teenager was advised she would have to wait up to three years for surgery to repair a torn knee ligament. "It's like somebody's telling you that you can buy this car, and you've paid for the car, but you can't have it right now," said Jane Pelton. Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government. "Every day we're paying for health care, yet when we go to access it, it's just not there," said Pelton. The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, partly to fund the health care system. Rates vary from province to province, but Ontario, the most populous, spends roughly 40 percent of every tax dollar on health care, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. The system is going broke, says the federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in health care. It calculates that at present rates, Ontario will be spending 85 percent of its budget on health care by 2035. "We can't afford a state monopoly on health care anymore," says Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario director of the federation. "We have to examine private alternatives as well." The federal government and virtually every province acknowledge there's a crisis: a lack of physicians and nurses, state-of-the-art equipment and funding. In Ontario, more than 10,000 nurses and hospital workers are facing layoffs over the next two years unless the provincial government boosts funding, says the Ontario Hospital Association, which represents health care providers in the province. In 1984 Parliament passed the Canada Health Act, which affirmed the federal government's commitment to provide mostly free health care to all, including the 200,000 immigrants arriving each year. The system is called Medicare (no relation to Medicare in the United States). Despite the financial burden, Canadians value their Medicare as a marker of egalitarianism and independent identity that sets their country apart from the United States, where some 45 million Americans lack health insurance. Raisa Deber, a professor of health policy at the University of Toronto, believes Canada's system is one of the world's fairest. "Canadians are very proud of the fact that if they need care, they will get care," she said. Of the United States, she said: "I don't understand how they got to this worship of markets, to the extent that they're perfectly happy that some people don't get the health care that they need." Canada does not have fully nationalized health care; its doctors are in private practice and send their bills to the government for reimbursement. "That doctor doesn't have to worry about how you're going to pay the bill," said Deber. "He knows that his bill will be paid, so there's absolutely nothing to stop any doctor from treating anyone." Deber acknowledges problems in the system, but believes most Canadians get the care they need. She said the federal government should attach more strings to its annual lump-sum allocations to the provinces so that tax dollars are better spent on preventive care and improvements in working conditions for health-care professionals. In Alberta, a conservative province where pressure for private clinics and insurance is strong, a nonprofit organization called Friends of Medicare has sprung to the system's defense. It points up the inequities in U.S. health care and calls the Canada's "the most moral and the most cost-effective health care system there is in the world." "Is your sick grandchild more deserving of help than your neighbor's grandchild?" It asks. Yes, says Dr. Brian Day, if that grandchild needs urgent care and can't get it at a government-funded hospital. Day, an English-born arthroscopic surgeon, founded Cambie Surgery Center in Vancouver, British Columbia -- another province where private surgeries are making inroads. He is also former president of the Arthroscopy Association of North America in Orlando, Fla. He says he got so frustrated at the long delays to book surgeries at the public hospitals in Vancouver that he built his own private clinic. A leading advocate for reform, he testified last June before the Supreme Court in a landmark appeal against a Quebec ruling upholding limits on private care and insurance. George Zeliotis told the court he suffered pain and became addicted to painkillers during a yearlong wait for hip replacement surgery, and should have been allowed to pay for faster service. His physician, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli, said his patient's constitutional rights were violated because Quebec couldn't provide the care he needed, but didn't offer him the option of getting it privately. A ruling on the case is expected any time. If Zeliotis had been from the United States, China or neighboring Ontario-- anywhere, in fact, except Quebec -- he could have bought treatment in a private Quebec clinic. That's one way the system discourages the spread of private medicine -- by limiting it to nonresidents. But it can have curious results, says Day. He tells of a patient who was informed by Ontario officials that since Ontario couldn't help him, they would spend $35,000 to send him to the United States for surgery. Day said his Vancouver clinic could have done it for $12,000 but the Ontario officials "do not philosophically support sending an individual to a nongovernment clinic in Canada." Canadians can buy insurance for dental and eye care, physical and chiropractic therapy, long-term nursing and prescriptions, among other services. But according to experts on both sides of the debate, Canada and North Korea are the only countries with laws banning the purchase of insurance for hospitalization or surgery. Meanwhile, the average wait for surgical or specialist treatment is nearly 18 weeks, up from 9.3 weeks in 1993, according to the Fraser Institute, a right-wing public policy think tank in Vancouver. A Fraser study last year said the average wait for an orthopedic surgeon was more than nine months. Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal government has pledged $33.3 billion in new funding to improve health in all provinces and territories over the next 10 years. But critics aren't impressed. "It won't make a difference," said Sally C. Pipes, a Canadian who heads the conservative Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. "They need to break the system down, or open the system up to competition." Pipes is a big supporter of the Bush administration proposal to allow Americans to divert some of their payroll taxes into medical savings accounts. She claims the two-tiered system feared by Canadian liberals already exists because those with connections jump to the head of the medical queue and those who can afford it can get treated in the United States. "These are not wealthy people; these are people who are in pain," said Pipes. Another watershed lawsuit was filed last year against 12 Quebec hospitals on behalf of 10,000 breast-cancer patients in Quebec who had to wait more than eight weeks for radiation therapy during a period dating to October 1997. One woman went to Turkey for treatment. Another, Johanne Lavoie, was among several sent to the United States. Diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 1999, she traveled every week with her 5-year-old son to Vermont, a four-hour bus ride. "It was an inhuman thing to live through," Lavoie told Toronto's Globe and Mail. "This is the first time someone has decided to attack the source of problems -- the waiting list," said Montreal attorney Michel Savonitto, who is representing the cancer victims. "We're lucky to have the system we do in Canada," he told the court. "But if we want to supply proper care and commit to doing it, then we can't do it halfway." An estimated 4 million of Canada's 33 million people don't have family physicians and more than 1 million are on waiting lists for treatment, according to the Canadian Medical Association. Meanwhile, some 200 physicians head to the United States each year, attracted by lower taxes and better working conditions. Canada has 2.1 physicians per 1,000 people, while Belgium has 3.9, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The World Health Organization in 2000 ranked France's health system as the best, followed by Italy, Spain, Oman and Australia. Canada came in 30th and the United States 37th. Alberta Premier Ralph Klein is pushing what he calls "the third way" -- a fusion of Canadian Medicare and the system in France and many other nations, where residents can supplement their government-funded health care with private insurance and services. But some Canadians worry even partial privatization would be damaging. "My concern is that the private clinics would only serve to further drain the scarce physician resources that we already have," said Dr. Saralaine Johnstone, a 31-year-old family physician in Geraldton, a papermill hamlet in northern Ontario. "We first need to guarantee that everybody has access to quality health care," she said, "and we just don't have that."
I think you may have missed the point. Companies and citizens are the ones that pay in both countries. The money doesn’t come from anywhere else. In the US they pay private insurers, and in Canada they pay a public insurer, the government, thought their taxes, higher taxes than you have in the US. The difference is that the Canadian system is much more efficient so it saves companies, and individuals, money overall. The extra that these companies spend on Canadian taxes is more than made up for by what they save on health care costs. That’s a big part of what makes it cheaper for them to operate in Canada.
What you’re referring to here is a situation that existed with our particular system in recent years. You have to remember that our system is 40 years old and was in need of an update. It’s not a problem that is inherent to this kind of system, just one that existed in our system until we changed it. No system is without flaws. I could get into a long winded explanation about how our system is funded by both the federal and provincial governments and how that caused funding to be squeezed for a while, but as I said these aren’t issues inherent to the single payer system. You’ve also touched on some of the quirks that exist because our systems are side by side and people can cross the boarder in each direction for certain services. Again, this is just a situation that exists because our systems are side by side. The bottom line is that the single payer system is much, much, more efficient, as are other universal systems. See the table on page 3 in this link. http://dll.umaine.edu/ble/U.S. HCweb.pdf As a percentage of GDP the US system is about 30% more expensive than the Canadian one, and it doesn’t cover 100% of your citizens. A big part of that savings is in administration costs. You can buy a whole lot of technology with a fraction of that difference. It’s just a question of what choices you want to make. What you might want to do with an American system is to do it on a state basis and have an elected person head it up. That way the citizens would have direct control over their own system. If you want your state to have an MRI in every hospital room, you can vote for it. That’s probably more control than you have over your private companies. Ain’t democracy grand? I’m not sure if this link has been posted but it looks to have some good info. http://www.massnurses.org/single_payer/singlepay.htm
Well, it looks like the US is kicking Canada's ass in health care coverage on that chart. So, I'm assuming these calls for national healthcare will die now.
I partially agree with this. 1st, I think we should admit that our current system has huge problems. Health care costs are skyrocketing with no end in sight. And at the same time most insurance companies are actually providing less coverage. More people are becoming uninsured or under-insured. Drug prices are exorbitant in relation to the rest of the world. There are serious problems that need to be dealt with and to pretend to think otherwise is ridiculous. 2nd at the same time we shouldn't entirely underestimate the benefits of the current system and the costs of a switch to national health insurance. First, rationing which is a gigantic issue in a lot of countries with NHI doesn't exist here. In Canada for example, its pretty much impossible to get transplants and critical surgeries in respectable amounts of time. The technology isn't there and hospitals in many cases don't have the money to buy the necessary equipment or house the necessary doctors. Second, doctor salaries are capped. Many doctors typically come here from abroad for that reason alone. Additionally, we've had state-wide experiments on this. Hawaii had (they still might have) a statewide health insurance program. And doctor retention rates just plummeted when they capped salaries. I know in Europe this has become a big issue for many because efforts to control costs have just led to a brain drain of doctors. 3rd and I think most people forget this is the potential for fraud and massive bureaucracy. We see lots of it in Medicare and Medicaid, so just expand that times 1000 and you get NHI. National health insurance would be so large that it would be impossible to effectively police fraud. Also, it functionally politicizes the health care industry. In this case, democracy isn't our friend because politicians will feel the need to continually bloat the system in order to pander for votes. No politician will ever support necessary cuts in health care spending ever again and you'll just get a gigantic bloated bureaucracy that will get subjected to ridiculous pork barrel spending. Also, NHI is the opposite of efficiency and I can't see how people make this claim. Other countries save costs, not from the program itself but from the capping of costs and the cutting back of other services and the promotion of rationing. Finally, have you guys thought about the economic impact of putting health insurance companies worth billions of dollars out of business? The impact would be pretty severe on the markets and the economy as a whole. 4th and lastly, I still contend the status quo is bad. My personal alternative is to make health insurance mandatory like auto insurance. Everyone must get it. Health insurance companies could stay alive and compete for our business. The government would help negotiate prices on a larger scale. They would essentially pool citizens together and use the larger numbers to negotiate lower prices. (this is done very effectively on the state level right now in certain states) Also, for those who couldn't afford health insurance, the government would pitch in and cover some or all of the costs depending on the income level. Also, the government would also negotiate with drug companies on drug prices in a similar fashion. The government has the potential to be a powerful negotiator who can speak on behalf of all of us while at the same time preserving the private system. Also, this would shift the burden of insurance away from corporations which have more of an incentive to cut costs and weaken their programs. I suppose my alternative isn't perfect and wouldn't exactly solve all of the problems but I think it would be a better system than a full, national health insurance program.
Here's a thought to ponder... Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured children in the nation. Texas doesn't get millions and millions of Federal money, your tax dollars, because of Republican cuts in the state budget. Matching Federal grant money goes to other states because Texas doesn't pony up, and the children, the disadvantaged, and the elderly suffer for this incompetence. Yet these fools are in power. That begs the question... what does that make Texans who voted them into power? To be charitable, uninformed. That's the nicest thing I can come up with. And get this... Perry has already asked all state agencies and commissions to cut their budgets 10% across the board. Again. During a huge state surplus. This is leadership? D&D. We Live in a Dirty World Getting Filthier by the Minute.
