posted August 16, 2009 02:08 PM         

On eve of medical association’s annual meeting:
New poll shows overwhelming support for public health care
CMA president out of touch with most Canadians

(Ottawa) In a last ditch effort to convince Canadians that the public health care system should be privatized, Canadian Medical Association (CMA) President Robert Ouellet has promised to “pull out all the stops” during the association’s annual meeting next week. Trouble is, Dr. Ouellet’s mission to “lead the change” to privatization, is exactly the opposite of what 86% of Canadians want.

A new poll conducted by Nanos Research points to overwhelming support (86.2%) for strengthening public health care rather than expanding for-profit services. “With more than eight in ten Canadians supporting public solutions to make public healthcare stronger, there is compelling evidence that Canadians across all demographics would prefer a public over a for-profit healthcare system,” said Nik Nanos, President of Nanos Research. Nanos Research was commissioned on behalf of the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC) to conduct a random telephone survey of 1001 Canadians between April 25th and May 3rd. The margin of accuracy for a sample of 1,001 is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

As well, the federal government just released its report: Healthy Canadians – A Federal Report on Comparable Health Indicators 2008. Its findings identically mirrored the CHC polling results. In that report, a leading indicator pointed to the fact that, “Most Canadians (85.2%) aged 15 years and older reported being ‘very satisfied’ or ‘somewhat satisfied’ with the way overall health care services were provided, unchanged from 2005.”

“Throughout our campaign, Canadians have told us they want to keep our health care system public and to improve it with made-in-Canada solutions. They also have told us they flat-out reject Dr. Ouellet’s proposal to provide us with American-style two-tier medicine. This poll certainly underlines that for us. Eighty-six percent is a significant portion of the population,” said Michael McBane, National Coordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition. “It is striking that Dr. Ouellet could be so out-of-touch with the pulse of most Canadians.”

McBane warned that Dr. Ouellet’s latest effort to replace public health care with a private system uses language that is misleading. “If imported into Canada, Ouellet’s ideas about activity-based funding, ‘competition’ and more private delivery would not yield European-style care but instead would lead us down the road to US-style care. At the CMA’s annual meeting later this month, you will hear Dr. Ouellet talk about ‘patient-centered’ care but he really means ‘profit-centered’ care. He will talk about transformative health care – which really means transforming a public system to one that is private. He will also unveil results of a CMA survey that he claims shows support for his new privatization scheme. In fact, the language used in the CMA survey was so vague and misleading that its results cannot possible be interpreted as support for more for-profit medicine.”

McBane said that Dr. Ouellet, who owns or manages 5 private, for-profit diagnostic clinics, has a history of misleading Canadians. Recently, the CMA president toured Canada touting the merits of what he called the European model of health care – cobbling together selective pieces of information from different European systems to lull Canadians into accepting the idea of more private, for-profit service.

“Dr. Ouellet needs to stop misleading Canadians and start telling them what he’s really up to – privatizing our health care system,” said McBane. “His ‘transformational change’ agenda is his last kick at the can before becoming the CMA’s past-president. Dr. Ouellet’s privatized, for-profit vision won’t solve a single problem of our public health care – and more importantly, Canadians don’t want it. And they’ve said this loud and clear.”

The Canadian Health Coalition is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting and expanding Canada’s public health system for the benefit of all Canadians.

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For more information:

posted August 16, 2009 02:44 PM         

kudos to the canadians for understanding this.

posted August 17, 2009 11:57 PM         

Presumably, they also didn't poll anyone who had to come to the United States to have their life saved by the American health care system.

Presumably, they also haven't heard the story of the Canadian man who was denied treatment and sued the national health care service...or board.

This man won his court case. In effect, the court said he should have been treated rather than denied.

Unfortunately, because he wasn't treated and time went on, he died before the court handed down the verdict.

Now, I hope his family sues the living hell out of every member on the denial board who refused him treatment.

The opinion of Canadian doctors is that the Canadian Health Care system is near collapse.

Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors
By Jennifer Graham (CP)

SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.

Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.

"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."

The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred. He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.

His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."

In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and other health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget. This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said.

Doig says she doesn't know what a proposed "blueprint" toward patient-centred care might look like when the meeting wraps up Wednesday. She'd like to emerge with clear directions about where the association should focus efforts to direct change over the next few years. She also wants to see short-term, medium-term and long-term goals laid out.

"A short-term achievable goal would be to accelerate the process of getting electronic medical records into physicians' offices," she said. "That's one I think ought to be a priority and ought to be achievable."

A long-term goal would be getting health systems "talking to each other," so information can be quickly shared to help patients.

Doig, who has had a full-time family practice in Saskatoon for 30 years, acknowledges that when physicians have talked about changing the health-care system in the past, they've been accused of wanting an American-style structure. She insists that's not the case.

"It's not about choosing between an American system or a Canadian system," said Doig. "The whole thing is about looking at what other people do."

"That's called looking at the evidence, looking at how care is delivered and how care is paid for all around us (and) then saying 'Well, OK, that's good information. How do we make all of that work in the Canadian context? What do the Canadian people want?' "

Doig says there are some "very good things" about Canada's health-care system, but she points out that many people have stories about times when things didn't go well for them or their family.

"(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable," said Doig.

posted August 18, 2009 01:14 AM         

Americans living in Canada prefer the U.S. health-care system for speed, quality and diagnostic technology, says a new study. But they also applaud the equity and cost-effectiveness of Canada’s system. And in the final analysis, 40 per cent prefer the Canadian system.
Canada.com link

posted August 18, 2009 03:52 PM         

From what I have heard and read about, I think the Canadian health care system is probably better than the U.S. one. At least one could afford to go the doctor, without getting bills in the mail for one or another thing for ONE ENTIRE year after the visit! My experience with U.S. health care has been really disappointing. Dental, vision, general care: hidden costs everywhere, high deductibles, doctors who don't seem to care for one as a person or one's long-term health goals and just want to get one out of the door the fastest...

posted August 18, 2009 11:53 PM         

Now, it's not hang-nail surgeries which are proposed to be cancelled but rather neurosurgeries and vascular surgeries...in other words, life saving surgeries.

This is what O'Bomber and his Socialist buds in Congress and his death club administration members want to give to Americans.

I'll take a pass, none for me, thanks but no thanks.

Oh, this was supposed to be a surprise for Canadians but soneone who actually has a brain leaked the report. Just watch how fast the little Socialist planners run away from this report.

Thousands of surgeries may be cut in Metro Vancouver due to government underfunding, leaked paper
By Darah Hansen, Vancouver SunAugust 18, 2009

Vancouver patients needing neurosurgery, treatment for vascular diseases and other medically necessary procedures can expect to wait longer for care, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Monday.

Dix said a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million.

“This hasn’t been announced by the health authority … but these cuts are coming,” Dix said, citing figures gleaned from a leaked executive summary of “proposed VCH surgical reductions.”

The health authority confirmed the document is genuine, but said it represents ideas only.

“It is a planning document. It has not been approved or implemented,” said spokeswoman Anna Marie D’Angelo.

Dr. Brian Brodie, president of the BC Medical Association, called the proposed surgical cuts “a nightmare.”

“Why would you begin your cost-cutting measures on medically necessary surgery? I just can’t think of a worse place,” Brodie said.

According to the leaked document, Vancouver Coastal — which oversees the budget for Vancouver General and St. Paul’s hospitals, among other health-care facilities — is looking to close nearly a quarter of its operating rooms starting in September and to cut 6,250 surgeries, including 24 per cent of cases scheduled from September to March and 10 per cent of all medically necessary elective procedures this fiscal year.

The plan proposes cutbacks to neurosurgery, ophthalmology, vascular surgery, and 11 other specialized areas.

As many of 112 full-time jobs — including 13 anesthesiologist positions — would be affected by the reductions, the document says.

“Clearly this will impact the capacity of the health-care system to provide care, not just now but in the future,” Dix said.

Further reductions in surgeries are scheduled during the Olympics, when the health authority plans to close approximately a third of its operating rooms.

Two weeks ago, Dix released a Fraser Health Authority draft communications plan listing proposed clinical care cuts, including a 10-per-cent cut in elective surgeries and longer waits for MRI scans.

The move comes after the province acknowledged all health authorities together will be forced to cut staff, limit some services and increase fees to find $360 million in savings during the current fiscal year.

In all, Fraser Health is looking at a $160-million funding shortfall.

D’Angelo said Vancouver Coastal’s deficit is closer to $90 million — almost a third of which ($23 million) has already been absorbed through reductions in non-clinical administration efficiencies.

Vancouver Coastal performed 67,000 surgeries last year, an increase of 6,500 surgeries over 2007.

“What has now happened is that now our wait times are about 25 per cent lower than the provincial average,” D’Angelo said. “We have put a dent in that wait list.”

Brodie acknowledged surgical waiting times have dropped significantly in recent years, particularly for patients needing hip and joint replacements.

He said the proposed cuts threaten those advancements.

“It sounds like we are going backwards here,” he said.

Total health spending in British Columbia was $15.7 billion this year, up about four per cent over last year’s total of 15.1 billion, according to figures provided by the ministry of health.

Health Minister Kevin Falcon was unavailable for comment Monday on the proposed health-care cuts. A ministry spokesman said Falcon is away on his honeymoon until the end of August.

Elsewhere in British Columbia, the province will look to replace the head of the Interior Health Authority, Murray Ramsden, after he announced he will step down at the end of the year.

Ramsden has said his decision to retire is not related to financial problems faced by the authority.
http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=1878506&sponsor

You really should learn to do your homework BEFORE popping off acoustic...not that I intend to hold my breath waiting for you to get with the program.

Here's the "poop" and I do mean "poop" on the group which commissioned the phony poll you posted.

The Canadian Health Coalition is a left-leaning lobby group dedicated to preserving Canada's current Medicare system and to promoting the overall goal and policy of universal public health care.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Health_Coalition

They're exactly the kind of nutty putty, Loony-Tunes, leftist twits I knew I was going to find.

posted August 19, 2009 12:22 AM         

quote:

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Here's the "poop" and I do mean "poop" on the group which commissioned the phony poll you posted.

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posted August 19, 2009 10:55 AM         

Perhaps you should apply your own "Pooper Scooper" to your own ideas, your own article sources and the quotes you post here before spreading the "poop".