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The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by Revmitchell, Feb 3, 2009.

  1. Bro. Curtis

    Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>
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    ...Indeed, Canada's provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery -- described by the Globe and Mail newspaper as "broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain."
    Only half of ER patients are treated in a timely manner by national and international standards, according to a government study. The physician shortage is so severe that some towns hold lotteries, with the winners gaining access to the local doc.
    Overall, according to a study published in Lancet Oncology last year, five-year cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. than those in Canada. Based on data from the Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health (done by Statistics Canada and the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics), Americans have greater access to preventive screening tests and have higher treatment rates for chronic illnesses. No wonder: To limit the growth in health spending, governments restrict the supply of health care by rationing it through waiting. The same survey data show, as June and Paul O'Neill note in a paper published in 2007 in the Forum for Health Economics & Policy, that the poor under socialized medicine seem to be less healthy relative to the nonpoor than their American counterparts.
    Ironically, as the U.S. is on the verge of rushing toward government health care, Canada is reforming its system in the opposite direction. In 2005, Canada's supreme court struck down key laws in Quebec that established a government monopoly of health services. Claude Castonguay, who headed the Quebec government commission that recommended the creation of its public health-care system in the 1960s, also has second thoughts. Last year, after completing another review, he declared the system in "crisis" and suggested a massive expansion of private services -- even advocating that public hospitals rent facilities to physicians in off-hours...


    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124451570546396929.html
     
  2. Bro. Curtis

    Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>
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    ...First things first: Canadians are funding the developed world's second most expensive universal access health insurance system. On an age-adjusted basis (older people require more care) in the most recent year for which comparable data are available, only Iceland spent more on universal access health insurance system than Canada as a share of GDP, while Switzerland spent as much as Canada. The other 25 developed nations which maintain universal health insurance programs spent less than we did; as much as 38 per cent less as a percentage of GDP in the case of Japan.
    With that level of expenditure, you might expect that Canadians receive world-class access to health care. The evidence finds this is not so.
    Consider the case of waiting lists. In 2008, the median wait time from general practitioner referral to treatment by a specialist was 17.3 weeks in Canada. Despite substantial increases in both health spending and federal cash transfers to the provinces for health care over the last decade or so, that wait time was 45 per cent longer than the overall median wait time of 11.9 weeks back in 1997. It was 86 per cent longer than the overall median wait time of 9.3 weeks back in 1993.
    Canada's waiting lists are also, according to the available evidence, among the longest in the developed world. For example, a 2007 survey of individuals in seven nations, six of whom maintain universal access health insurance programs, published in the journal Health Affairs found that: - Canadians are more likely to experience waiting times of more than six months for elective surgery than Australians, Germans, the Dutch, and New Zealanders, but slightly less likely than patients in the United Kingdom; and were least likely among the six nations to wait less than one month for elective surgery; - Canadians are most likely to wait six days or longer to see a doctor when ill, and are least likely to receive an appointment the same day or next day among the six universal access nations surveyed; and - Canadians are least likely to wait less than one hour and most likely to wait two hours or more for access to an emergency room among the six universal access nations surveyed...


    http://www.calgaryherald.com/Health...+value+health+care+dollars/1584180/story.html
     
  3. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Wow! That is quite a blow to the defenders of Canadian Health care.
     
  4. Robert Snow

    Robert Snow New Member

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    Let me see...I can believe someone who hates the Canadian system from the beginning, such as Curtis or Revmitchell, or I can listen to people who actually live in Canada and have actually used the Canadian health care system. I guess I will believe those who have first-hand experience over those that don't.
     
  5. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    You should listen to neither. You should do your own research.
     
  6. queenbee

    queenbee Member

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    Interesting article on this same subject in my morning paper.....

    Anti-medicare Americans cite Canada's system -- wrongly.
    U.S. health care reform is being slowed by right-leaning groups using misinformation to keep the system in private, for-profit hands


    By Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun July 28, 2009

    Debate about health care reform in the U.S. has been overtaken by frivolous tales of doom and disaster.

    I thought there was nothing scarier than not having any health coverage -- the position 47 million Americans are in, with millions more being under-insured.

    Nothing scarier than going bankrupt because of health costs; 62 per cent of U.S. bankruptcy filings are reported to be at least partly due to such costs.

    But apparently, for many Americans, the prospect of having Canadian-style medicare is even scarier.

    They fear it would mean losing their right to choose a doctor, and bureaucrats deciding on treatment.

    Such negatives are being played up by right-leaning interest groups determined to derail President Barack Obama's plan to introduce health care reform by the end of the year.

    Canada has been dragged into the discussion despite the fact Obama isn't promoting a publicly funded universal scheme for the U.S. And a false impression of the Canadian medicare system is being vigorously propagated.

    The latest example comes by way of Shona Holmes, a disgruntled Canadian embroiled in a fight with the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. The dispute revolves around funding for surgery -- for either a cyst or a brain tumor.

    It's hard to know how legitimate Holmes's gripe is without hearing from OHIP, and privacy provisions preclude that. But Holmes has certainly had her 10 minutes of fame and a trip to D.C.

    To what end? Having this country's medicare system used by Americans as a pinata is pointless.

    Canadian medicare isn't up for debate in either country. Canadians know their system isn't perfect, but most like it enough to want to keep it.

    Everyone gets covered, Canadian life spans are longer, infant mortality figures are better than in the U.S. and Canadians pay 48 per cent of what Americans do for care.

    Sure, waiting lists are frustrating and Canada does have a shortage of family doctors, but acute care treatment is excellent, Holmes's case notwithstanding.

    Americans should be making decisions about their health care system based on fact -- not irrelevancies or extreme examples of what goes on in another country's system.

    The U.S. debate is being further hindered by a knee-jerk aversion to a government role in health care administration. Why Americans would be more inclined to accept a private health insurance staffer making decisions on a course of treatment than a bureaucrat is anyone's guess.

    Americans also don't appear to accept the notion that the profit motive has no place in a health system.

    Their health care is funded mainly through private health insurers, corporate entities that trade on the stock exchange. And so, health needs of Americans have to compete with the need for the private insurers to make a profit.

    In Canada, of course, hospitals and provincial health care bureaucracies are non-profit and doctors get paid based on fees negotiated with provinces.

    It's also worth noting that the U.S. private health insurance companies donate heaps of money to American politicians, which of course serves to consolidate their standing in the U.S. system.

    But hey, it's their system, they're welcome to it and free to reform its components as they choose. It's just a bit rich for the pot to be calling the kettle black.

    [email protected]

    © Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
     
  7. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Talk about misinformation, they need to get the number right on the uninsured. It is blatantly false that there are 47 million uninsured Americans. And it is clear this is a propaganda piece and lack any sense of objectivity. So much for journalism.
     
  8. Bro. Curtis

    Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>
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    The last piece I quoted was from a newspaper in Calgary. That's in Canada, y'know......

    And the CNN article I quoted dealt with a citizen of Canada, y'know.....

    And if you bothered to look up the WSJ link, you would see links & references to back it up.
     
  9. queenbee

    queenbee Member

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    And of course, since you've passed judgement that it's unclear, lacks objectivity and is a piece of prograganda, it must be so! It's an opinion piece! And you've clearly missed the last line of the article -

    "But hey, it's their (your) system, they're welcome to it and free to reform its components as they choose. It's just a bit rich for the pot to be calling the kettle black". Silly man! ought to try it sometime.
     
    #29 queenbee, Jul 28, 2009
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 28, 2009
  10. SeekingTruth

    SeekingTruth Member

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    Silly woman. You should not use another persons opinion to supportn your opinion. Both are just opinions and no more valid than any other opinion.:BangHead:
     
  11. queenbee

    queenbee Member

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    "Silly woman. You should not use another persons opinion to support your opinion. Both are just opinions and no more valid than any other opinion".

    I don't recall stating my opinion in my first post at all - merely inserting an 'interesting article' to read. You should go back and re-read the facts Seeking Truth.

    I only stated an opinion in my second post in response to RevM's usual caustic, high-handed, knee-jerk reactions and pointing out, (perhaps it's not obvious to you), that in fact, Ms. Yaffe's comments about the pot calling the kettle black, might actually be true in his case.

    If that makes me silly - so be it.
     
    #31 queenbee, Jul 29, 2009
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 29, 2009
  12. SeekingTruth

    SeekingTruth Member

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    Amen and amen.
     
  13. OldRegular

    OldRegular Well-Known Member

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    Okay SeekingTruth shape up there!
     
  14. Robert Snow

    Robert Snow New Member

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    We have several Canadian posters here on the BB, y'know....

    I trust their input over anything you would post on the issue, they appear more reliable to me, y'know...
     
  15. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Or reliable or not they just say what you want to hear.
     
  16. alatide

    alatide New Member

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    But under our system you only get the health care the insurance company says you need not your doctor. Someone without a medical background dictates your treatment. Doctors are getting squeezed by lower payments from the insurance companies on the one hand and huge malpractice insurance costs on the other. many doctors are quitting and most new MDs are becoming specialists rather than the GPs we really need.
     
  17. alatide

    alatide New Member

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    This isn't socialism. It's efficient health care.
     
  18. targus

    targus New Member

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    Where do you get this from?

    If someone in my family is sick we call the doctor and make an appointment - usually for the same day. We go to the doctor and the insurance company pays the bill - end of story.

    If the doctor wants us to see someone else after him he makes the referal and usually makes the appointment for us while we are still at his office. We go to the specialist on our appointed time and the insurance company pays the bill - end of story.


    Why do you think that it will be any different with Obama's plan?

    Obama is already telling doctors that they make too much money.

    Is there tort reform in the plan? No.

    So why will malpractice insurance go down?

    Many doctors are already planning to quit if this plan passes.

    And where do you live that has a shortage of doctors? We have three hospitals within five miles of where I live.

    I almost always get an appointment the same day that I call.

    BTW - will Obama care include dental and optical? I don't think so.

    If not why not? Don't poor people deserve dental and optical care too? Isn't dental and optical insurance expensive too?
     
  19. Magnetic Poles

    Magnetic Poles New Member

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    There you go, Mr. Snow. How did you convince the BB's Canadian posters to only post what you wanted to hear. Nice trick. :rolleyes:
     
  20. Bro. Curtis

    Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>
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    Good. Take their word for it. I will still post opposing views when I find them. And that includes dissatisfied Canadians, as there are obviously more than just a few.
     
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