I have no idea about bureaucrats and above but all the hospitals I've worked for have been cutting corners to save money. Old equipment, lack of trained staff, unhygienic and unsanitary conditions for patients, excessive wait times and rationing are systemic in Ontario. There are hospitals that are so dirty I refuse to work in them, let alone go to them for treatment. Our health care system needs more money, public or private is irrelevant to me. If I could pay for real health care I would. I’m a lefty wack job and private health care is starting to look good to me. People are dying that could easily be saved. America’s system of social Darwinism is not really worth emulating though. US health care is even more messed up than ours.
If America adopts Canada's health care system
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"If the U.S. adopts Canadian-style health care, where will Canadians go when they get sick?"
- Fred Dalton Thompson
We should have enacted the reforms Doctor/Senator Keon's commission recommended a decade ago, but our health care bureaucracy could not stand the idea of competing internally with itself.
The choice is not just Canadian or American health care. The French have a very good system.
- Fred Dalton Thompson
We should have enacted the reforms Doctor/Senator Keon's commission recommended a decade ago, but our health care bureaucracy could not stand the idea of competing internally with itself.
The choice is not just Canadian or American health care. The French have a very good system.
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Nemo888 said:
The things you report are a result of our current system. If the "system" isn't called to account for the billions they get already, then giving them more money will not change things.
In areas where you can directly control where you spend your money, results are vastly different. Shopping at Wal Mart is a perfect example, you go there because you know you will get more for your money. Wal Mart has lots of incentives to keep administrative and other costs as low as possible, and also to maintain their stores so they are as clean and attractive as possible; they want you to come back. If a private health care hospital wasn't run like a Wal Mart; they would quickly go out of business.
US style health care, with it's government distortions creating a powerful perverse incentive for insurance cartels to charge for everything that isn't nailed down could also use a dose of privatization.
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Yup, isn't it nice to have a job that will still pay you as you wait to get 'fixed'.......most do not.Lone Wolf Quagmire said:
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Geo,
Best wishes and good luck for your sister!
Proximity to the American system has provided some innovation that
could not occur in a publicly funded system. Hospital and health care
have changed a-lot in the last generation. Much of this change
is a result of changes in management methods.
Hospitals used to be run by doctors.
We don't trust doctors with our money anymore, so
we now have hospital management administrators.
So, in my opinion the system is less patient centred.
There are some issues that many people are not aware of.
Outcomes are far better if you have a regular "family" doctor.
You get treatment and diagnosis sooner.
Most of the employees of the healthcare system are not medical.
There is much more paper in the system than there used to be.
Costs have risen for reasons that have nothing to do with patient care.
In the US the paper burden on health care is far larger due to
insurance companies requirements.
Most of a physicians' ongoing education is actually provided by
drug companies. So naturally the public ends up with shopping
bags full of meds.
To tie it all up - Your (public) money isn't going where you think.
If you took all of patients out of the system, the system would cost a bundle.
America would do well to provide some universal standard of health-care.
Many people in the US have no insurance coverage at all.
That means cheap problems turn into expensive ones before they get
attention. This is emerging trend in Canada for different reasons.
The delay to getting treatment costs more in the long run........
2 sisters are nurses - Dad was a doctor. Yea, I've got opinions ;D
Best wishes and good luck for your sister!
Proximity to the American system has provided some innovation that
could not occur in a publicly funded system. Hospital and health care
have changed a-lot in the last generation. Much of this change
is a result of changes in management methods.
Hospitals used to be run by doctors.
We don't trust doctors with our money anymore, so
we now have hospital management administrators.
So, in my opinion the system is less patient centred.
There are some issues that many people are not aware of.
Outcomes are far better if you have a regular "family" doctor.
You get treatment and diagnosis sooner.
Most of the employees of the healthcare system are not medical.
There is much more paper in the system than there used to be.
Costs have risen for reasons that have nothing to do with patient care.
In the US the paper burden on health care is far larger due to
insurance companies requirements.
Most of a physicians' ongoing education is actually provided by
drug companies. So naturally the public ends up with shopping
bags full of meds.
To tie it all up - Your (public) money isn't going where you think.
If you took all of patients out of the system, the system would cost a bundle.
America would do well to provide some universal standard of health-care.
Many people in the US have no insurance coverage at all.
That means cheap problems turn into expensive ones before they get
attention. This is emerging trend in Canada for different reasons.
The delay to getting treatment costs more in the long run........
2 sisters are nurses - Dad was a doctor. Yea, I've got opinions ;D
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And with that reasoning they wouldn't have the $28,000 to pay for it either.Bruce Monkhouse said:
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Flip,
Wishes much appreceated.
"sister sitrep"
From Montreal, sister consulted MDs in Montreal, Boston & NewYork
was advised that Montreal Neurological has cutting edge equipment & MDs on leading edge of treatment for condition.
Sooo.... back to Montreal & has started treatment
Chemo for the last 3 weeks + Radiation treatment for the last one... this is expected to continue thru to early January.
Excluding the trips to the US, all this has been paid for by Quebec Medicare.
No line jumping, no influence peddling, nada....
All things being equal in the world, my sister will pull thru and be +/- "as good as new" in 2008
Wishes much appreceated.
"sister sitrep"
From Montreal, sister consulted MDs in Montreal, Boston & NewYork
was advised that Montreal Neurological has cutting edge equipment & MDs on leading edge of treatment for condition.
Sooo.... back to Montreal & has started treatment
Chemo for the last 3 weeks + Radiation treatment for the last one... this is expected to continue thru to early January.
Excluding the trips to the US, all this has been paid for by Quebec Medicare.
No line jumping, no influence peddling, nada....
All things being equal in the world, my sister will pull thru and be +/- "as good as new" in 2008
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Flip, right on .
+1
+1
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Lone Wolf Quagmire said:
I wouldn't be too sure of that...................maybe smart people invest that money every year that they don't pay in taxes instead of crying for big brother to bale them out.
I'll keep my 'communist' public system thanks very much. It might suck in a thousand different ways, but on principle alone I prefer it. I am also perfectly happy with half of my substantial tax bill going to the health care system. Private health insurers make more money the less care they provide. If they can shave down the amount of coverage (via denial of benefits, legal action or policy technicallity) there is a strong incentive for them to do so. Not that all companies do this, but the bottom line is the bottom line. Compaines exist to make money, not anything else. Obviously there is a role, an important one, for private business to play in health care and in society. Each society must choose in this case whether it prefers the vast benefits to helping the aggregate, at a substantial cost I might add, or prefer the liberty of the individual over society, also at substantial cost but of a very different sort. Could Canada's system be improved, 100% it could, there is lots of room for improvement. The U.S., however, is need of a health care revolution.
An interesting photo essay. I've never needed health care in extremely remote or areas in Canada, we could have clinics like this running also, I really don't know. But this is in the middle of Virginia.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/11/18/magazine/20071118_HEALTHCARE_SLIDESHOW_index.html
An interesting photo essay. I've never needed health care in extremely remote or areas in Canada, we could have clinics like this running also, I really don't know. But this is in the middle of Virginia.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/11/18/magazine/20071118_HEALTHCARE_SLIDESHOW_index.html
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No doubt about it!
" Socialized medicine" is one the ugliest misnomers that exist.
While health care workers agree that they carry a sacred trust,
There's lot's of opportunity in the public system for profit.
If it was approached less as an industry and more like an
institution, like national defense, things could get sorted out.
Delays and wait times are largely a figment of over management.
Perhaps analagous to civilian oversight?
What is clear in this country - Private vs. public is the wrong
question to the wrong answer.
" Socialized medicine" is one the ugliest misnomers that exist.
While health care workers agree that they carry a sacred trust,
There's lot's of opportunity in the public system for profit.
If it was approached less as an industry and more like an
institution, like national defense, things could get sorted out.
Delays and wait times are largely a figment of over management.
Perhaps analagous to civilian oversight?
What is clear in this country - Private vs. public is the wrong
question to the wrong answer.
Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
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Health care workers do not carry a sacred trust. If people didn't make it into med school because daddy was a doctor, and I didn't know any workers who are pretty much just there for the money, then I might concede it's a sacred trust. It's a business. Treat it like one.
The individual workers might not carry a sacred trust, but the system does. Just like the CF, some may be there just because its a job and some money in the pocket, or for other direct personal benefits; some might get more advancement on account of personal connections, but does that make it just a 'military business' and nothing more? What about the federal government, some are surely there for perks alone, but does that mean that it carrys no roll beyond captial accumulation?
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Or perhaps some people can't save their money to invest because they have nothing left after they pay the bills and feed themselves. Must be nice to live in your world where everyone has had the opportunity to put money away while meeting their other financial obligations as well as their own basic needs.Bruce Monkhouse said:
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Bane said:
In the competitive market, "companies" have to deliver the best combination of cost and quality, while maximizing quantity, or be replaced by a better provider. There is no such incentive to improve quality or quantity, or reduce costs, in the public system: only to 'justify' budgets. One is left to rely solely on the supposed wisdom and benevolence of industry and politicians. :
Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
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>but the system does
The "system" is just the sum of its own legislative and administrative overhead and service delivery mechanisms. If the "sacred trust" (the "system") vanished tomorrow, profit-seekers would step in to fill the vacuum.
The "system" is just the sum of its own legislative and administrative overhead and service delivery mechanisms. If the "sacred trust" (the "system") vanished tomorrow, profit-seekers would step in to fill the vacuum.
I_am_John_ Galt:
First, I did point out that competitive markets and private firms have an important role to play in health care and society; "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." Secondly, this notion that 'competitive markets' always produce, or gravitate towards, the most beneficial outcomes for society is one of the biggest fallacies of neo-classical economics. Imagine GE was your health care provider, how responsive to a slight shift in the 'market winds' is a 3/4 trillion dollar company going to be? Aside from the fact that the neo-classical model says that markets favour smaller, independent firms that cannot, individually, distort the market. Most major industries have only 3 or 4 big players, quasi-monopolies.
I don't want to get into a giant essay about this to take the thread way off track, but there was a good solid reasons for the great backlash against un-regulated market capitalism to begin in the 19th century, and why our more modern regulated capitalism is much more palatable and tends to work 'better' for society. You also malign government, suggesting that their lack of competitive impulse makes them 'slack and idol', yet they must remain responsive to the electorate, and some government departments are run very well. So does everybody make a reasonable effort to help their neighbour, thus helping to alleviate some inequality? And yes, with a bigger tax bill Or do we assume and pretend that people are individual particles, ‘homo economicus’, rational actors that aren’t steeped it a dense network of social connections, but people that make rational choices at every turn with perfect information for balanced, mutually beneficial, outcomes?
First, I did point out that competitive markets and private firms have an important role to play in health care and society; "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." Secondly, this notion that 'competitive markets' always produce, or gravitate towards, the most beneficial outcomes for society is one of the biggest fallacies of neo-classical economics. Imagine GE was your health care provider, how responsive to a slight shift in the 'market winds' is a 3/4 trillion dollar company going to be? Aside from the fact that the neo-classical model says that markets favour smaller, independent firms that cannot, individually, distort the market. Most major industries have only 3 or 4 big players, quasi-monopolies.
I don't want to get into a giant essay about this to take the thread way off track, but there was a good solid reasons for the great backlash against un-regulated market capitalism to begin in the 19th century, and why our more modern regulated capitalism is much more palatable and tends to work 'better' for society. You also malign government, suggesting that their lack of competitive impulse makes them 'slack and idol', yet they must remain responsive to the electorate, and some government departments are run very well. So does everybody make a reasonable effort to help their neighbour, thus helping to alleviate some inequality? And yes, with a bigger tax bill Or do we assume and pretend that people are individual particles, ‘homo economicus’, rational actors that aren’t steeped it a dense network of social connections, but people that make rational choices at every turn with perfect information for balanced, mutually beneficial, outcomes?
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The biggest obstacles to HillaryCare are the American voter and money. The American voter see's how screwed up our Social Security system is and adding a national healthcare program will just follow down that same path. A national healthcare program will not be free it will be paid for by higher taxes at a time that state and local governments are increasing sales taxes/property taxes/personal income taxes. Historically Americans have gotten their healthcare benefits from their employer. The examples of European national healthcare and Canada actually make the case against national healthcare. High personal taxes and increasing healthcare costs take up huge chunks of the national budgets of these countries which has seen a shift from national defense to healthcare/social security. Every nation has an obligation to protect their citizens from foreign attack. These governments dont have an obligation to actually "take care" of their citizens. What ever happened to the individual's responsibility to provide for his own retirement/healthcare ? If the nations of Europe wanted to be able to compete with the US economically they would privatize national healthcare and reduce taxes. Shift the burden back to individuals and the employer. They could retain their senior citizen benefits pension/healthcare.
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As members of the military we are in a favourable position. Whenever we are referred for a procedure - I just had MRIs done for my knees - we go to the front of the line. Most medical facilities have a set annual budget and therefore do ration care. When we show up with a military referral it's like cash in hand. Although the procedure may be completed at midnight, we free up surplus capacity. It's not uncommon for surgeons and diagnostic equipment to be working at 50-60% efficiency.
On another note, my wife will shortly be employed in the US as a skilled manager. Both she and I will be FULLY covered under health care plans in the US and Canada. It will be interesting; we asked questions of immigration lawyers that they could not answer... and $400/hr to boot. (For example, if I move to the US will by tax free disability pension be taxable in the US? - no answer).
Cheers
On another note, my wife will shortly be employed in the US as a skilled manager. Both she and I will be FULLY covered under health care plans in the US and Canada. It will be interesting; we asked questions of immigration lawyers that they could not answer... and $400/hr to boot. (For example, if I move to the US will by tax free disability pension be taxable in the US? - no answer).
Cheers
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In Edmonton we have excellent health care and oddly, two systems.
The UofA health group that also takes care of education and research,
and the Caritas Health group that owes it's beginning to the Catholic Church.
The differences in these two groups is remarkable. While the UofA health group
enjoys far greater resources their focus is somewhat diluted. Caritas patients
benefit from a different attitude and greater focus on their individual needs.
All other conditions being equal - the difference is the management.
More doctors in the Caritas example.
Hospitals are only a fraction of the health care system, however.
I know a physician who opted not to have an office or staff.
The money he saved allowed him to provide far superior care to his
few patients. I also note that many people prefer female doctors.
This is not because their fingers are smaller.
This appears to be a result of being motivated differently than many
of their male counterparts.
I am fortunate to have known a great many doctors who take their
obligation to society so very seriously. This obligation is what drives them
to do research, attend hopeless cases, do international aid work etc.etc.
This is why our healthcare system works.
If you want a system that exists as a profit centre. Our heathcare system
as we know it - will not work. This why the suits up in the big offices
have done so much damage in the last generation.
One last anecdote as evidence.
I see my doctor every three monthes or so. I know
that he knows me. I suggest you all do the same.
I see my dentist only when something hurts. This is stupid
But, it's all I can afford.
Which is better?
The UofA health group that also takes care of education and research,
and the Caritas Health group that owes it's beginning to the Catholic Church.
The differences in these two groups is remarkable. While the UofA health group
enjoys far greater resources their focus is somewhat diluted. Caritas patients
benefit from a different attitude and greater focus on their individual needs.
All other conditions being equal - the difference is the management.
More doctors in the Caritas example.
Hospitals are only a fraction of the health care system, however.
I know a physician who opted not to have an office or staff.
The money he saved allowed him to provide far superior care to his
few patients. I also note that many people prefer female doctors.
This is not because their fingers are smaller.
This appears to be a result of being motivated differently than many
of their male counterparts.
I am fortunate to have known a great many doctors who take their
obligation to society so very seriously. This obligation is what drives them
to do research, attend hopeless cases, do international aid work etc.etc.
This is why our healthcare system works.
If you want a system that exists as a profit centre. Our heathcare system
as we know it - will not work. This why the suits up in the big offices
have done so much damage in the last generation.
One last anecdote as evidence.
I see my doctor every three monthes or so. I know
that he knows me. I suggest you all do the same.
I see my dentist only when something hurts. This is stupid
But, it's all I can afford.
Which is better?
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