posted September 14, 2004 05:17 PM            

Long waits for examinations and even longer waits for treatment is the inevitable result of socialized medicine. The system breaks down as bureaucrats take over and medical professionals leave the system for greener pastures.

What good is free medical care if you can't get an appointment to see a doctor?

Canada's Once-Proud Public Health System in Crisis
Canadians Suffering Long Waits for Treatment; 18 Months for Knee Surgery
By David Ljunggren, Reuters

OTTAWA (Sept. 14) - Canada often boasts its universal health care program shows it is more caring than the United States, but the system is creaking alarmingly, with long wait lists for treatment, and shortages of cash and doctors.

And far from criticizing the United States, some people are choosing to go south of the border to pay for operations in private hospitals -- institutions that are forbidden in Canada by the law that set up the publicly funded system.

Politicians, experts and professionals generally agree that the medicare system needs major reforms, but the program's cherished status as an icon of Canadian identity means big changes are politically risky.

"Few would dispute the prevailing reality of our time: people in this country are increasingly anxious about their ability to get in to see the right health professional at the right time," Prime Minister Paul Martin said on Monday.

"Meanwhile, financial pressures are increasing as our population ages, as medical knowledge...expands, and as beneficial but expensive new treatments become available," he told a top-level meeting designed to rescue medicare.

Martin, joined at the table by the premiers of Canada's 10 provinces, faces a hornet's nest of problems as he tries to fix the health system. Medicare is jointly funded by the federal and provincial governments but run solely by the latter, an arrangement that causes plenty of rancor.

Medicare eats up $39 billion a year in public funds alone and the provinces continually demand more money, with no strings attached. Ottawa says it is prepared to contribute more but insists the provinces agree to benchmarks to ensure the funds are being spent properly.

As the politicians bicker, Canadians spend more time waiting in line. A study by the right-wing Fraser Institute this month said that average waiting time for treatment in 2003 rose to 17.7 weeks from 16.5 weeks in 2002.

"This grim portrait is the legacy of a medical system offering low expectations cloaked in lofty rhetoric," the study said, criticizing the fact that governments and not doctors are responsible for allocating resources.

Some delays are much longer. Patients in Ontario who require major knee surgery can wait six months to see a specialist and then another 18 months for surgery.

"When I started work 30 years ago it took three weeks to get a patient into a specialist's office. Now it can take six months. There is a lot of inhumanity built into the system," one unhappy family doctor told Reuters.

Statistics Canada said in June that some 3.6 million Canadians, or 15 percent of the population, did not have a regular doctor last year. This means hospital emergency rooms are flooded by people with routine problems.

Experts say the shortage of doctors will only get worse as an increasingly elderly physician population starts to retire over the next decade. And as medical expertise becomes ever more sophisticated, so will the demand and the expense.

"There will be new treatments which don't exist today that will exist 10 years from now and we'll have to address those wait times," New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord told the meeting on Tuesday.

Some provincial premiers -- notably Ralph Klein of Alberta -- say one obvious solution is to increase the use of private clinics and hospitals, where people would pay for treatment.

Ottawa has in the past withheld health care funds to provinces experimenting with for-profit clinics and new federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh took up his job in July with a vow to "stem the tide" of privatization.

posted September 14, 2004 06:05 PM              

The way I see it is, once health care becomes free for everyone with no regard to cost, the DEMAND for health care will be a massive pain in the rear end for doctors and nurses, many will leave the profession, give rise to a large waiting list, and then make way for higher risk of death.

What are you going to say to parents who need their son to have a heart transplant? "Oh I'm sorry Mrs. Smith, but not only do we have to wait for a heart to come in, but we also have to wait for the government to pay for it, so hopefully we'll see you in about a year, that is if your son is still alive, thank you, bye bye now!"

posted September 14, 2004 06:44 PM              

I'm going to lean far right with this statement, but when did health care become a right?

posted September 14, 2004 07:15 PM            

1) Taxes would HAVE to be raised SUBSTANTIALLY in order to fund it. OR, alternately, they could get rid of ALL social programs to pay for it (not bloody likely)

2) It ROCKS for your basics - the flu, ear infection, etc. Your general minor stuff. But for just about everything else, well, get ready to hurry up and wait. Unfortunatly, many terminal diseases and conditions WON'T

3) You think emergency room waits are long NOW? Just WAIT... however, there is one good difference - because healthcare would be "free", less people would go to the ER for minor stuff, and/or poorer people wouldn't wait until a problem is a major issue before seeking medical attention. But generally, there are less hospitals.

4) Get ready to be far from the cutting edge in medical advancements - the gov't (and universities) would then have to fund all research (because why should private industry do it if there's no profit in it? Answer: they won't)...

One way I would even consider supporting National Healthcare...

1) Eliminate welfare COMPLETELY. I'm not talking about Unemployment Insurance, nor Disability Insurance (although I advocate more stringent criteria for what constitutes "disability"). Re: welfare, for extreme circumstances, limit the amount of time one can receive it - and don't reward people (with addt'l funds) for continuing to have children.

2)Keep private insurance available to those that want better coverage.

3) Torte reform - reduce maximum damage amounts in settlements except in flagrant and malicious negligence.

posted September 14, 2004 11:13 PM            

I read a story only a week or so ago that I can't find now but it was an open letter of well wishes to Bill Clinton at a time when he was scheduled for surgery. The point was made by the writer that if America had adopted the Hillary Health Care Plan...which was straight socialized medicine...he would be facing up to a 3 years wait for his surgery instead of a few days.

Cases were cited from Canada where similar patients waited up to 3 months just to see a specialist. The specialist then put the patients on medication and scheduled surgery.....for almost 3 years in the future.

The Canadian system is breaking down with very long waits. My point in starting this thread was to point out that Kerry favors socialized medicine with everyone covered by a government run and administered health care plan.

None for me...thanks.

posted September 15, 2004 02:03 PM            

I mean, c'mon, really...what do we care. That's right, republicans sit around laughing at disadvantaged people, with the attitude, "**** em, they're poor".

**in case someone is having apoplexy at those comments, I'm being facetious**

The cost of health insurance needs to be dealt with, agreed. I just disagree with entitlements. If someone doesn't have health insurance, I suggest they try for a job that provides health insurance, or alternately, they can get coverage for themselves, there are low-cost options. Finally, if one is just so poor that those options don't work for them, they can already get medical attn through county hospitals, etc.

I fully agree that there needs to be some medical system reform in the US - but I have a question for you - would you reduce the quality of ALL American's healthcare just to provide it to a minority of the population that doesn't have it? Especially considering, they already have access to healthcare through the current county hospital system - oh yeah, and then there's non-profit christian hospitals, which will see "poor" people at little or not cost.

How anyone can look around the world at current social healthcare systems and their failures, then advocate it here to me defies logic. How 'bout a different approach? Or does it always come down to, "well, you just don't care about the poor folk if you don't advocate MY approach"...

posted September 15, 2004 02:03 PM              

I think it's interesting how many people find themselves somehow more important than the people who are suffering in poverty with no medical insurance and have to pay thousands of dollars for a broken leg... AND... if you can't pay the hospital for the treatment, it ruins your credit.

Before my husband and I were married a few years ago, I had no health insurance.

I had to file bankrupcy because the hospital would accept no less than FIVE payments on the services recieved for kidney stones. The CAT scan itself was well over $1000 + every drop of medication I received, CRACKERS, emergency room charges... it's damned ridiculous! They wanted five payments of $1000(ish) and would accept no less. They even told me that if they received a check for less that the check would be sent back to me uncashed.

Something can be done about this...

Furthermore, it is the US health system that steals the Canadians. Since it pays so much to rip off poor people in this country, the doctors leave Canada to practice medicine here.

If we also had some form of socialized medicine (and higher learning) this would no longer be the issue. Good Canadian doctors would STAY in Canada, because there would be no reason for them to come here.

P.S. The (very important) job of Stay at Home Mom doesn't come with benifits.

posted September 15, 2004 02:07 PM            

quote:

---

think it's interesting how many people find themselves somehow more important than the people who are suffering in poverty with no medical insurance

---

Where did ANYONE say ANYTHING to that affect? And WHY does it always come down to that kind of crap when we're discussing this stuff? Don't you think it's hugely presumptuous to just assume that those that don't advocate your approach are cold-hearted b@stards that don't care about anyone but themselves, especially the little guy? I mean, it's it remotely POSSIBLE that that is NOT the case, that they're attitudes lie somewhere in between "**** em" and "entitlements"?

edit: Every stay at home Mom I know has medical insurance through their husband...

posted September 15, 2004 02:10 PM              

I shouldn't have to get married to get health insurance.

posted September 15, 2004 02:17 PM            

As LS pointed out.. it's hardly a small minority..

quote:

---

The number of people with health insurance rose by 1.5 million between
2001 and 2002, to 242.4 million, and the number of uninsured rose by 2.4
million, to 43.6 million, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today.

An estimated 15.2 percent of the population had no health insurance
coverage during all of 2002, up from 14.6 percent in 2001, according to
the report, Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2002.

The proportion of insured children did not change in 2002, remaining at
64.8 million, or 88.4 percent of all children.

---

posted September 15, 2004 02:23 PM              

Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle. BUT, I have been a *have not* and know what it feels like.

posted September 15, 2004 02:33 PM            

How bout just talking about the issue for once, instead of bringing blanket statments of right wingers and left wingers into it. Jwhop and I could make many a blanketed statment about liberals in this discussion, but it's not cogent to the issue itself. By bringing that crap into it, it muddies the issue and makes it impossible to work though the problems of the issue itself.