Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatising!!

[Karlin]

“The data is clear and really irrefutable: Canadians are healthier than Americans and they have better access to medical care,” Dr. Steffy Woolhandler of the Harvard Medical School said Tuesday. She added that medical care is easier to access for Canadians.

The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, was conducted by Harvard Medical School researchers. They also found that:

Canadians were seven per cent more likely to have a regular doctor
Canadians were 19 per cent less likely than Americans to have their health needs go unmet.
Americans were more than twice as likely to forgo needed medicines because of cost.
Discrepancies in health care become even wider when taking into account income, age, sex, race and immigrant status. In those kind of detailed comparisons, Canadians were 33 per cent more likely to have a regular doctor and 27 per cent less likely to have an unmet health need.

Meanwhile, Americans had higher rates of nearly every serious chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes and chronic lung disease, even though U.S. residents were less likely to be smokers.

http://tinyurl.com/jrz2c

Well, I would say thats pretty solid assessment, and a damning one for more privatised health care in Canada. Privatised health care doesn't help patients, its just a corporate advantage to have it privatised. An advantage to thyose wealthy investors who are constantly looking for places to put their extra dollars. Who are these investors with extra dollars,and why do we tolerate this inequity, just because they are smarter or have rich parents or some abilty and merit? Is that why we are willing to let them take away our health care system that works better than their will? Why do you feel so lowly about yourself that you would support an Elite class getting involved in our health care system [for profiteering].

With the extra health care dollars going to profits, there has to be a balancing "dollar deficit" in care quality, OR you must pay more - its an equation of accounting.

There. I hope this ends the movement to privatised health care, and begins to look at other areas essential to life that we let the Elite Wealthy take away our dignity and dollars.

Meritous indeed - but not in deeds,
Karlin

 

[Toro]

RE: Canada's Health Care

People who live in colder climes usually live longer.

In 1900, Sweden had the longest life expectancy at 56.

 

[athabaska]

RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

I have a client whi is 78 years old. She has extensive cataracts and despite the handicap has been told it will be just over a year before she can have a simple procedure to improve her vision. She's off to a private clinic in spokane in 2 weeks to have her vision restored...all for the price of a new washer and dryer. She gets her vision restored and one more public system patient moves up the ladder.

 

[gc]

Re: RE: Canada's Health Care

People who live in colder climes usually live longer.

In 1900, Sweden had the longest life expectancy at 56.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

Most of the countries with the highest life expectancy aren't too cold.

 

[Vicious]

RE: Canada's Health Care

Here's some news. There are more than two systems of health care delivery in the world. I'm pleased that canada's system is considered better than the US. But I don't think the country should be happy with that. I believe there is always room for improvement. How do we rate against the rest of the world. What is the overall health of canadians compared to europeans?

 

[sanch]

Re: RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privat

I have a client whi is 78 years old. She has extensive cataracts and despite the handicap has been told it will be just over a year before she can have a simple procedure to improve her vision. She's off to a private clinic in spokane in 2 weeks to have her vision restored...all for the price of a new washer and dryer. She gets her vision restored and one more public system patient moves up the ladder.

The task would be to improve the public system to reduce wait times. That is an achieveable goal. But it would be compromised by a two tier system as the private sector would suck resources from the public sphere.

You could tell your client it is even cheaper to go to India or Thailand for treatment. No wait time at all.

 

[bluealberta]

Re: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

IMO. the only way to speed up the process is to get more outlets and more doctors. So, I am in favor of using privately owned facilities for medical procedures, as long as they are paid the going rate for the type of procedure required. A publicly funded use of private health care facilities, and they would make no more or less than what the cost is at a public hospital.

The alternative is to have our publicly funded hospitals operating at full capacity 24/7, so if you had to have knee surgery, and you were scheduled for 2:30 am, thats when you go. For those who support only the public system, this should also be part of your protest, use the facilities to the max. Why should CT scans go from 8:00 - 5:00 MOnday - Friday?

Two alternatives folks. Me, I prefer the use of privately operated facilties being paid through the public system. Still one line, but you go to whichever facility is available when your turn comes up.

 

[unclepercy]

Re: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

Who do you think has the ULTIMATE medical care, the most technology, best doctors, and superior equipment in the world?

I think the US has it - but in different areas. Cancer is best treated in Houston or at Sloan Kettering. Burns at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Heart surgery - again, MD Anderson Hospital is right up there. But Baylor in Dallas is in the top #10 for over all.

Baylor just pulled my son-in-law's mother from the brink of death for about the 10th time a couple of weeks ago when she fell and broke her hip, then got pneumonia and a staph infection. They cured her cancer, her ulcers, her pancreatitis, put a food tube in her 10 years ago, cured her anemia, and she is still hanging in there at 83.

If it can be done (and sometimes it can't) Baylor will cure you and send you home. Be rich, though.

Uncle

 

[Toro]

RE: Canada's Health Care

I've said this before and I'll say it again - I personally would rather get sick in America than in Canada.

 

[CanEcosse]

RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

''I've said this before and I'll say it again - I personally would rather get sick in America than in Canada''

Not all Americans who need to go to a hospital can go to the more prestigious ones can they ? When I lived in a Canadian city (located near Detroit) I would always hear reports about the hospitals there that were overburdened with gunshot wound patients or people who were refused at a hospital because they had no heath coverage. I know the universal health care system in Canada isn't perfect but the american one isn't either. There may be these prestigious hospitals in the states which are hailed as being the best care centres for certain types of ailments but are these available to every american ? Does a single mother giving birth to her child enjoy the same type of care at a hospital in the ghetto as a rich married woman would at a hospital in a more affluent area ?

I personally would prefer to 'get sick' at a Canadian hospital rather than an american one. At least all Canadian residents (in theory) are provided with the right of basic health care coverage regardless of their socioeconomic status. That is better than a system which punishes you for being poor with substandard health care(or none at all).

 

[Jay]

RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

We are all guaranteed the same basic level of healthcare in Canada, unfortunately that might mean dieing waiting in the emerg room.

 

[tracy]

RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

BS! I hate when people start talking about healthcare in Canada like the care we provide is from the stone age or something. First of all, ERs triage patients by need. You aren't going to be waiting 6 hours for treatment of a heart attack. You might for an ear infection. If you don't like it, get the government to start training more staff for the ER and stop wasting their time going there with minor ailments that could be handled at a clinic or doc's office.

Both countries have good and bad hospitals. I would happily be a patient at Baylor in Dallas (2 of my nursing friends used to work there), I wouldn't be thrilled to have to go to King-Drew in LA (my insurance company wouldn't even pay for me to stay there it's so bad). Canada is the same. I worked at BC Women's and Children's hospital in Vancouver and Mount Sinai in Toronto with a brief stint at the Hospital for Sick Children and I can tell you the care there is on par with anything at any hospital anywhere in the world. Some of their protocols are years ahead of hospitals down here (read about unmatched organ transplants in babies done in Toronto for an example, those kids often die here waiting for a matched organ). There are some places I wouldn't be thrilled to go to in Canada too, but that's always going to be the case in any country.

 

[Jay]

RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

IT isn't BS and you know it.

Waiting times have been a problem for over 20 years.

Some people just don't give a shit and champion stupid arguments like "no two tier healthcare" because their ideology is more important than people.

The tide is turning....

 

[Mogz]

RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

Our Health Care system isn't as great as we drum it up to be. First and foremost, it's abused. A great example is Saturday Night. My Mom called me around 10pm to say she'd just gotten back from the Hospital in St. Albert (5 min North of Edmonton). She'd cut herself deeply on the hand and, being a nurse, she knew she'd required stictches. So she drove to the ER, and subsequently waited 3 hours to be even looked at. While she was sitting there, bleeding, she listened to paitients talking. A mother with her child that MAY have a bladder infection. Another who's child's nose won't stop running. A man who sprained his ankle. A girl who had a migrain. All these people, with ailments that pale in comparison to a wound that requires 7 stitches, are what's wrong with our system. Anyone and everyone can abuse it. Instead of going for legit reasons, people milk it. I can count on one hand the times i've been to the ER in my 23 years of existence:

1. Stitches to my chin after being hit with a 2x4
2. A broken arm
3. A fracture coccyx
4. A broken hand
5. Dislocated knee

To me, those are legit. I've been sick, very, i've had headaches that were agony, i've ever had bladder infections, pink eye, heavily bleeding veinous cuts, and a broken toe, and for those I never went to the ER, because I don't feel the need to waste tax money and doctors/nurses time when I can treat myself at home. Our system is bogged down, and unless we get people to stop abusing the great system we have, privisation is the only way to go in my opinion.

 

[tracy]

Re: RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privat

IT isn't BS and you know it.

Waiting times have been a problem for over 20 years.

Some people just don't give a shit and champion stupid arguments like "no two tier healthcare" because their ideology is more important than people.

The tide is turning....

The BS part is "we may die in the ER waiting". Really? Are thousands of Canadians dying like that every year? How many do you know? Wait times are a problem. That's true pretty much everywhere (yep, you sometimes have to wait in emergency rooms down here too). That's a long way from "OMG, we're going to die in the waiting room". Anyone who says otherwise cares more about their ideology than about the truth.

Sometimes I wish Canada did have privatised healthcare just so the advocates could see what a great system it is to live with. There isn't one logical argument detailing why it would help with the Canadian system's problems.

 

[Jay]

RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

It happens and that is the point....for the Canadian government to say it is illegal to buy your own healthcare insurance and run a problematic system when the idea is "no one left behind" is morally wrong and illegal as stated in Quebec.

We want the private medicine available to us, but we have a small problem with certain ideologues.

America has superior delivery of healthcare, as stated bluntly by my doctor; you have a problem with getting everyone covered. We can work around that in Canada, and not trample on people’s rights.

 

[MMMike]

Re: RE: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privat

IT isn't BS and you know it.

Waiting times have been a problem for over 20 years.

Some people just don't give a shit and champion stupid arguments like "no two tier healthcare" because their ideology is more important than people.

The tide is turning....

The BS part is "we may die in the ER waiting". Really? Are thousands of Canadians dying like that every year? How many do you know? Wait times are a problem. That's true pretty much everywhere (yep, you sometimes have to wait in emergency rooms down here too). That's a long way from "OMG, we're going to die in the waiting room". Anyone who says otherwise cares more about their ideology than about the truth.

Sometimes I wish Canada did have privatised healthcare just so the advocates could see what a great system it is to live with. There isn't one logical argument detailing why it would help with the Canadian system's problems.

To my knowledge nobody has even tried to measure the effect of long wait times for various diagnostics like MRI, CAT scans etc... I know my mother was bounced around waiting months and months for this test and that test before being diagnosed with a gratefuit sized brain tumour. Somehow she still had a good recovery, but how many people are not so lucky. We're talking about relatively simple diagnostics that could be done by a myriad of private providers without opening the Pandora's box of "credit card healthcare" as the looney left preach against.

 

[Toro]

Re: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

Both systems have their strengths and flaws.

But if I need something - anything - I can get it right now. No long delays. No rationing. And I ain't wealthy.

If I were poor, I'd rather be in Canada. But I'm not. So, given the choice of what system I would rather have my son and my wife in, I'd rather it be in America. The service I have received down here is excellent.

 

[bluealberta]

Re: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

Will someone from the "one tier only" viewpoint tell me what is wrong with using private facilities, as long as they are paid through the public system? We need more facilities if we are to shorten wait times.

 

[Tresson]

Re: Canada's Health Care systme works better - no privatisin

Will someone from the "one tier only" viewpoint tell me what is wrong with using private facilities, as long as they are paid through the public system? We need more facilities if we are to shorten wait times.

The main problem most of the one tier supporters have is where the private clinics/hospitals are going to get their profit from if they're getting paid the same amount for the care they give as govermental health care? I mean their not in it to feel good here.

Are we going to get worse servise from them?

Are they going to start charging extra for things that we aren't now paying for,(like oh clean sheets)?

Are they going to, basically, going to be away for the rich to bypass the lines because the poor and middle class can't pay for all the 'extra' that the clinics are charging?

These are the things are what worry us. Not to say our system is perfect by a long shot but it is fixable. The step would be getting the MBAs out of the jobs in healthcare they have no business being in and put them where they'll actually do some good.