National Health Service bashers make me sick

[Machjo]

Why are we comparing two among the most extrem systems in the world? The Canadian systems and the NHS system are among the most socialized systems in the world, while the US system is among the most deregulated. So it's natural that neither system will be able to exploit the advantages of the other very well.

Now if you should compare that to the Swedish system, and especially the Singaporean system, that's where we may find a system capable of exploiting to the maximum the advantages of both the US and Canadian systems. The world is far bigger than our two countries.

 

[ironsides]

Indeed, juan. In many cities in Ontario they have walk in clinics. Anybody who doesn’t’ have a family doctor can visit one at the walk in clinic. It is not as good as having a family doctor of course. You have to see whoever is on duty and there no continuity in care by the same doctor. However, they do receive adequate treatment.

Shortage of Family physicians, while real, is not fatal. One can always go to the emergency. However, that can involve a wait of several hours. Walk in clinic is a much better alternative, and they are present in most big cities.

Oh, and I don’t believe that people are dying, I would want to see the statistics for that.

There are walk-in clinics down here also, plus there are quit a few family physicians also. Why do we want to send them off running to parts unknown?

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I know I am reading articles about the worst of Canadian healthcare, but are they wrong? Why is there a waiting period of over a week or two for any kind of surgery? In the U.S. you need cosmetic surgery, you just make an appointment thru your doctor and get it. Emergency surgery is done immediately like yours without delay.


Long Waits for Health Care Plague Canada
Long Waits for Health Care Plague Canada - by Sean Parnell - Health Care News

ironsides, I looked up Hartland Institute (the link you have given is to Heartland Institute). It is a conservative, extreme right wing organization and is highly unreliable. It almost has to be, it has a viewpoint to promote (far right viewpoint), so it is going to twist everything, invent facts to support their worldview. Check out the following:

Mitchell Anderson | Three Full-Page Whoppers from the Heartland Institute (Part Two)

I did not check how reliable the other articles quoted by you are, but remember that just because it is on the internet does not mean that it is true. Internet contains plenty of trash. That is why it is important to refer to a reputable, respectable source.

 

[Machjo]

By the way, I'm not denying that there is enough empirical evidence to indicate that socialized medicine is in fact more efficient than privatised overall, just that we should not extrapolate that to mean that the more socialized it is, the better. There is a happy medium, and the best systems are the ones that strive to find it, as Singapore had done in the 80's, and as Sweden has started doing more recently.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Why are we comparing two among the most extreme systems in the world? The Canadian systems and the NHS system are among the most socialized systems in the world, while the US system is among the most deregulated.

Machjo, what you say about NHS is not true, there is plenty of private sector involvement in UK. Private companies (BUPA was the biggest when I lived in UK) provide insurance for the same services as those offered by the government, and enables \you to bypass the waiting lists.

Canadian system may be socialized, but British system is not.

 

[ironsides]

Why are we comparing two among the most extrem systems in the world? The Canadian systems and the NHS system are among the most socialized systems in the world, while the US system is among the most deregulated. So it's natural that neither system will be able to exploit the advantages of the other very well.

Now if you should compare that to the Swedish system, and especially the Singaporean system, that's where we may find a system capable of exploiting to the maximum the advantages of both the US and Canadian systems. The world is far bigger than our two countries.

We have been thinking to small, haven't we. There are other health systems out there, which I know nothing about.

 

[lone wolf]

Oh, and I don’t believe that people are dying, I would want to see the statistics for that.

Look them up then. That way you can pick and choose your favoured sites because anything anyone would provide you wouldn't be good enough. Note the keyword: dyING.

 

[Machjo]

Why are we comparing two among the most extreme systems in the world? The Canadian systems and the NHS system are among the most socialized systems in the world, while the US system is among the most deregulated.

Machjo, what you say about NHS is not true, there is plenty of private sector involvement in UK. Private companies (BUPA was the biggest when I lived in UK) provide insurance for the same services as those offered by the government, and enables \you to bypass the waiting lists.

Canadian system may be socialized, but British system is not.

OK, I stand corrected. So maybe the UK system does have a better balance. I've been reading a bit on the Swedesh and Singaporean models recently, and they both have alot to teach both Canada and the US in terms of finding the right balance in a two-tier system. I don't know, maybe the US system is the same? Anyway, I'll look further into that then.

 

[Machjo]

Healthcare in Sweden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Health care in Singapore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Two-tier health care - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You can read a bit mroe about the Swedish and Singaporean systems here. The Singaporean model seems to have proven more sucessful overall in that the Swedish model is itself currently undergoing a transition. However, some have criticized certain aspects of the Singaporean model as being not translateable to geographically bigger countries (after all, Singapore is a city state). I don't see why we couldn't pick and choose from the Singaporean model and maybe combine it with some aspects of the current Swedish model to come up with a new system that expoits the strengths of both public and privte health care.

 

[Machjo]

And the NHS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service_(England)

I'll look at it now.

 

[lone wolf]

Here's one...

Harnek Sidhu,52 died, due to negligence of Canadian Hospital-

...and another:

http://www.thestar.com/article/504848

or this....

http://www.caep.ca/template.asp?id=7BD52CAFD85E4EE1A964838EBA055571

 

[Machjo]

We have been thinking to small, haven't we. There are other health systems out there, which I know nothing about.

YouTube - Sweden - The Swedish Health Care System
YouTube - Singapores health system saves money and lives

These vids give a basic intro to the Swedish and Singaporean systems.

 

[Machjo]

SJP,

I've just read a little about the British system. Not bad either, though its checks and balances don't compare to the Singaporean one.

 

[Machjo]

A good vid on the NHS here:

YouTube - Michael Moore's SiCKO (NHS in Britain)

 

[pgs]

Thanks Machjo
Some thing else to consider.
Sure Juan you survived a heart attack,but as I stated earlier our system is alright in trauma situations.I never tried to imply that our proffesional practitoners
wwere anything but competent .It is the system that is lacking.

 

[Machjo]

Go crawl back in your cave, or under the bridge, or wherever. You really don't seem to know what you are talking about.

The Quebec case was a ruling that pointed out that the government cannot forbid private health care. It overturned some legislation which forbade private health care.

I use this case all the time to point out that nothing can forbid private health care in Canada, and the reason we have so little of it is because the public health care is far more cost effective.

Let me repeat: nothing forbids private health care in Canada, the reason it does not exist in plenty is because it cannot compete.

Health care in Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Restrictions on privately funded health care
Main article: Canada Health Act
The Canada Health Act, which sets the conditions with which provincial/territorial health insurance plans must comply if they wish to receive their full transfer payments from the federal government, does not allow charges to insured persons for insured services (defined as medically necessary care provided in hospitals or by physicians). Most provinces have responded through various prohibitions on such payments. This does not constitute a ban on privately funded care; indeed, about 30% of Canadian health expenditures come from private sources, both insurance and out-of-pocket payments.[46] The Canada Health Act does not address delivery. Private clinics are therefore permitted, albeit subject to provincial/territorial regulations, but they cannot charge above the agreed-upon fee schedule unless they are treating non-insured persons (which may include those eligible under automobile insurance or worker's compensation, in addition to those who are not Canadian residents), or providing non-insured services. This provision has been controversial among those seeking a greater role for private funding.
In 2006, a Canadian court threatened to shut down one private clinic because it was planning to start accepting private payments from patients.[47]
Governments have responded through wait time strategies, discussed above, which attempt to ensure that patients will receive high-quality, necessary services in a timely manner. Nonetheless, the debate continues.

 

[Machjo]

This might reveal the relative strenghts of the Canadian and US systems too:

[edit] Canadians visiting the U.S. to receive health care

Some residents of Canada travel to the United States because it provides the nearest facilty for their needs. Some do so on quality grounds or because of easier access.

• A 2002 study showed that the amount of Canadians using US services to be "barely detectible relative to the use of care by Canadians at home." [4]
• According to a September 14, 2007, article from CTV News, Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stronach went to the United States for breast cancer surgery in June 2007. Stronach's spokesperson Greg MacEachern was quoted in the article saying that the US was the best place to have this type of surgery done. Stronach paid for the surgery out of her own pocket.[48] Prior to this incident, Stronach had stated in an interview that she was against two-tiered health care.[49]
• When Robert Bourassa, the premier of Quebec, needed cancer treatment, he went to the US to get it.[50]
• In 2007, it was reported that Canada sent scores of pregnant women to the US to give birth.[51] In 2007 a woman from Calgary who was pregnant with quadruplets was sent to Great Falls, Montana to give birth. An article on this incident states there were no Canadian hospitals with enough neo-natal intensive beds to accommodate the extremely rare quadruple birth.[52]
• A January 19, 2008, article in The Globe And Mail states, "More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here. Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care." [53]

[edit] US citizens visiting Canada to receive health care

On the other hand, some US citizens travel to Canada for health-care related reasons:

• Many US citizens purchase prescription drugs from Canada, either over the Internet or by traveling there to buy them in person, because prescription drug prices in Canada are substantially lower than prescription drug prices in the United States; this cross-border purchasing has been estimated at $1 billion annually.[54]
• At least one Canadian entrepreneur is beckoning US residents to Canada for simple surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements.[55] However, the article does not cite any actual patients who have responded to his offer.
• Because medical marijuana is legal in Canada but illegal in most of the US, many US citizens suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and glaucoma have traveled to Canada for medical treatment. One of those is Steve Kubby, the Libertarian Party's 1998 candidate for governor of California, who is suffering from adrenal cancer.[56] Recent legal changes such as Proposition 215 may decrease this type of medical tourism from California only.

 

[Machjo]

This might reveal the relative strenghts of the Canadian and US systems too:

[edit] Canadians visiting the U.S. to receive health care


Some residents of Canada travel to the United States because it provides the nearest facilty for their needs. Some do so on quality grounds or because of easier access.

• A 2002 study showed that the amount of Canadians using US services to be "barely detectible relative to the use of care by Canadians at home." [4]
• According to a September 14, 2007, article from CTV News, Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stronach went to the United States for breast cancer surgery in June 2007. Stronach's spokesperson Greg MacEachern was quoted in the article saying that the US was the best place to have this type of surgery done. Stronach paid for the surgery out of her own pocket.[48] Prior to this incident, Stronach had stated in an interview that she was against two-tiered health care.[49]
• When Robert Bourassa, the premier of Quebec, needed cancer treatment, he went to the US to get it.[50]
• In 2007, it was reported that Canada sent scores of pregnant women to the US to give birth.[51] In 2007 a woman from Calgary who was pregnant with quadruplets was sent to Great Falls, Montana to give birth. An article on this incident states there were no Canadian hospitals with enough neo-natal intensive beds to accommodate the extremely rare quadruple birth.[52]
• A January 19, 2008, article in The Globe And Mail states, "More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here. Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care." [53]

[edit] US citizens visiting Canada to receive health care


On the other hand, some US citizens travel to Canada for health-care related reasons:

• Many US citizens purchase prescription drugs from Canada, either over the Internet or by traveling there to buy them in person, because prescription drug prices in Canada are substantially lower than prescription drug prices in the United States; this cross-border purchasing has been estimated at $1 billion annually.[54]
• At least one Canadian entrepreneur is beckoning US residents to Canada for simple surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements.[55] However, the article does not cite any actual patients who have responded to his offer.
• Because medical marijuana is legal in Canada but illegal in most of the US, many US citizens suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and glaucoma have traveled to Canada for medical treatment. One of those is Steve Kubby, the Libertarian Party's 1998 candidate for governor of California, who is suffering from adrenal cancer.[56] Recent legal changes such as Proposition 215 may decrease this type of medical tourism from California only.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

There are walk-in clinics down here also, plus there are quit a few family physicians also. Why do we want to send them off running to parts unknown?

That may be ironsides, but in USA, walk in clinics won’t be free. I assume you have to pay fee upfront (unless you have insurance). In Canada you don’t have to pay anything.

 

[AnnaG]

That may be ironsides, but in USA, walk in clinics won’t be free. I assume you have to pay fee upfront (unless you have insurance). In Canada you don’t have to pay anything.

Nonsense. Canadians pay health insurance; both public, through taxes, and private, out of pocket. There is a price for everything in Canada. Free is a myth.
BTW, whenever I see my doc, I pay a user fee. We do that in BC.