Totally at odds with my personal experience (cancer and a depressive episode), my father's (lung, bladder, kidney, prostate, and skin cancer; cross-femoral arterial graft; abdominal aortic aneurysm; my mother's (cracked vertebra, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis), my partner's (torn rotator cuff, hip pain), an aunt's (cataracts), another aunt's (30+ year breast cancer survivor) and that of several friends (breast cancer, metastatic breast cancer, MS, kidney failure, depression).
Statistics can be manipulated. I trust what I have seen with my own eyes much more. And with rare exceptions, there has been quick access to skilled care.
"I trust what I have seen with my own eyes much more." I, too, Bob.
Moved here to the States fifteen years ago after 35+ years in Canada, and I'm staying - for the health care.
Bob LeDrew, No one is saying that there isn't pockets of good service in Canada.If you travel the world you will find better services provided than is offered here. In Lindsay Ontario the average wait to get on a doctors list is about seven years. In my town of Madoc Ontario if I don't like the treatment I am recieving from my doctor I can't go anywhere else because we only have one doctor that serves three towns. I would prefer to have the right to get my own healthcare rather than have the state dictate what I can have for healthcare. In other countries if I don't get good service I can simply pay for my own care or buy insurance so I don't have to stand in line like a peasant in a communist country.
Socialism sucks Bob.
I didn't sign up for it, my parents never voted for it, and we are being forced to prop up a failed socialist experiment.
Funny that all these people in my experience have lived in FIVE different communities in three provinces (from a town of 6,000 to a city of 1 million) and that all of them have great respect for the professionals who have served them and the system in general, eh?
I'm not saying our system is perfect. Far from it. I don't doubt people have different experiences in different communities.
But spare me the "socialist" stuff. Our system works pretty damn well in most places, for most people, most of the time. Could be better. Could be a HELL of a lot worse.
Seems to me that what you're talking about ain't socialism; it's Adam Smith at his best -- you live in a town of 1000 people, more or less, way too small to support a doctor. You think "capitalism" would deliver you more doctors? I don't. The way to get more doctors would be to force them to work in underserviced communities. And that sounds like ... gasp! ... socialism!
"But spare me the "socialist" stuff. Our system works pretty damn well in most places, for most people, most of the time."
Well, yeah Bob. And when on those oh-so-rare occasions when it fails doctors and nurses, they run South. And when "most" doesn't cut it for patients who aren't amongst the "most", people die. As in "dead". Perhaps "most" people survive Canada's glorious single payer society.
Snarking aside, many of Canada's brightest and most creative are seeking other professions. Of those that do decide upon Medicine, a not insignificant portion find greener pastures and greater respect South o' 49. That has direct impact upon the "most", and it has been a great supply of extraordinary professionals down here.
Spare us all, the "socialist" stuff. It has never worked, except in the most ironically paradoxical manner, to America's advantage.
On a bang for buck basis, as the Fraser institute and others has repeatedly demonstrated, Cda gets a very very poor return compared to every other industrialized country.
As for the anedotal evidence cited above it means nothing either way as those witnesses have nothing to compare it to.
Canada has a stalinist healthcare system design shared only with Cuba and perhaps Vietnam. It has a similar set-up in its marketing bds for dairy eggs and poultry. Sure the quality may be world-class, but the cost to consumers is twice that provided by the american free market system that also has equal levels of quality. the cdn healthcare system delivers the opposite but equally bad bargain - poorer quality at roughly similar cost.
Since my anecdotal evidence means nothing, how 'bout other studies that suggest our system isn't horrible and "stalinist" (oooh, from socialism to stalinism in just six comments -- can fascism be far behind? :-))?
A good roundup can be found at Wikipedia (unless that's a Stalinist rag controlled by the egg marketing board) [External Link]
I would suggest it's impossible to make a definitive statement that our system is better or worse than the systems of other Western countries. I just know that I'm a pretty activist patient, and a keen observer, and that I feel well-treated.
If others want to wring their hands and say everything is awful, horrible, we're all gonna die young 'cause of the Stalinists, or the socialists, or someone, well... good luck to you.
I live near a town of 10,000 people and I am lucky to have a family doctor. Many do not and the few doctors in the area are not taking any new patients. In Ottawa, not a small town, a growing number of people do not have a family doctor. In Ontario according to the Ont. medical assoc. over 1 million folks do not have a doctor, and that number will grow as the aging M.D.'s retire. You can thank the '93 Federal budget which slashed health transfers and the causual relationship to slashed medical school spending by the Provinces.
Posted at 2007-12-31 11:14:11 [PermaLink]Whether you are an assertive patient or not is irrelevant. Unless you get the exact same cancer and have it treated in a different juristiction your experience is meaningless in determining which system is better/satisfactory. In fact it is worse than useless in that it is being cited as evidence and thus helps to distort the discussion.
This ([External Link]is the most thorough study of the CDN system vs. the others and it shows conclusively that the cdn system is very much sub-par on a bang for the buck basis.
The term Stalinist is accurate. The CDN healthcare system was designed by fans of the Stalin-era system of centrally-controlled services and five-year plans. And unlike socialist systems that provide services on an equal basis to all, the CDN system, like those under Stalin, provides better services to the elite than to the rest of society and many in that elite prosper disproportionately from the strictures of the system(as also happens in the supply mgmnt system).
Folks... PLEASE do remember to include the [sarc] tags when quoting Wikipedia as an authority. It's fine for seventh grade science essays. (Known around here as Wikipoedia.) It is rather a Stalinist rag, BTW, controlled and edited by an "elite" cadre of greying lefties.
Posted at 2008-01-01 12:45:48 [PermaLink]Bob LeDrew is just defending Canada's health care system for the sake of defending it. He's not arguing the points anyone else is making here.
Sure Canada's health care is ok. Like most Western Democracies we get pretty decent health care. Nobody is arguing that.
The argument being made in this thread is that we could get the same level of health care by spending less money, if portions of it were privatized.
All of the people Bob LeDrew listed could/would have gotten the same level of health care - but at a lower price and likely much faster - in another country. Doesn't matter if it's America, Scotland, Indonesia or Kenya - if the same service can be provided at a reduced cost, we should consider that.
Obviously all these comments are coming from ignorant Americans which are being brain washed by the colors of their flag. I say good for you continue to pay through your teeth for a mediocre service and by the way yes the rich American are getting to notch Health care while the not so wealthy either die or live with their problem for the rest of their natural life. Yes you will have the odd situation that you will have an unsatisfied Canadian customer since like all systems its not perfect but after 30 years of traveling to both countries I am laughing at your pompous and erroneous US BS. PS I will probably dance on your grave....
Posted at 2008-03-28 15:38:02 [PermaLink]The American healthcare system is the best in the world. Or so we are often told. But is it really true?
It is certainly the best system for drug companies, which can charge the highest prices in the world to some U.S. consumers. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that average prices for patented drugs in 25 other top industrialized nations were 35% to 55% lower than in the United States.
And it is a pretty good system for hospitals, insurance companies and others that deliver healthcare services. Americans spend about twice as much per person for healthcare as do Canadians, Japanese or Europeans, according to the World Health Organization.
But it's not a good system for American citizens. The U.S. has shorter life expectancies and higher infant and child mortality rates than Canada, Japan and all of Western Europe except Portugal, according to the WHO.
I'm a drug company executive who has spent 20 years marketing pharmaceuticals. And I'm troubled. I'm most troubled by the fact that we stick it to the people who can afford it the least.
For instance, elderly people who use a Medicare discount card and have to pay $1,299 annually for a drug that the Department of Veterans Affairs purchases for $322, according to a comparison by Families USA. Or middle-class families that lose health insurance and have to pay $29,500 for an overnight hospital stay, when Medicaid would have paid only $6,000, according to the Wall Street Journal.
It just doesn't make any sense. And, not surprisingly, the companies with the biggest profits those in the drug industry have been fighting hardest to maintain the status quo.
Our dirty little secret is that the drug industry already sells its products, right here in the U.S., at the same low prices charged in Canada and Europe. It's done through rebates. These are given to those with enough power to negotiate drug prices, such as the VA.