Canadian Politics - Healthcare

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by notyoueither

Public is not better when it comes to controlling costs.

And yet, all the studies show that the U.S. spends far more on health care administration than Canada.

So the public system is more efficient.

As for comparing costs with European countries, Canada and the U.S. will always have higher costs because of the need to provide health care to people in rural areas. How much of a factor this is, I don't know, but it is a cost factor.

And if we use life expectancy as a measure, Canadians are better off than in most countries.

[notyoueither]

Sweden has relatively large rural areas, and if we use life expectancy as a measure we are not better off, and we spend more while getting less.

You seem to want to play fast and loose with comparisons. For comparisons of costs you admit only the US. For comparison of overall health, you want to introduce Thailand.

Not very honest of you, is it?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Sweden has relatively large rural areas, and if we use life expectancy as a measure we are not better off, and we spend more while getting less.

You seem to want to play fast and loose with comparisons. For comparisons of costs you admit only the US. For comparison of overall health, you want to introduce Thailand.

Not very honest of you, is it?

You're the one comparing apples to oranges. So not very honest of you, eh.

Population density, people per square kilometre

Canada 3.1
Sweden 19.7
Netherlands 390
UK 244

[notyoueither]

Yes but, what percentage of our population lives within 200 miles of the US border?

Using a density number that includes 3 people living in a thousand square miles of the arctic isn't very honest, eh? Do you think we spend 300 times as much per person on them?

The vast majority of our dollars are spent on the vast majority of our people, those who live in the major cities.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Tingkai


But should the poor be penalized with lower quality health care just because they are poor?

In Canada, everyone has access to high quality health care, regardless of whether their wealth.

There are waiting lines, but those could be significantly reduced if funding was increased. But instead, Conservatives and Liberals prefer to give tax cuts to corporations.

It is all about priorities.

Nobody is saying ( as yet , at least ) that the public system should be dismantled .

Thus , the poor are not penalised , only that the rich are rewarded - and they pay for it . It's like the computers market - in the beginning , all computing equipemnt which is on the cutting edge is very powerful and very expensive . But as initial costs are recovered ( from the rich , I may add ) , the same technology grows cheaper and is finally affordable and soon becomes the standard .

Finally , it ends up like this - A new medical tech is developed , but in a private hospital . For the first few years , only the very rich can afford it , because it's new and cost a lot , and is still a prototype without much refinement . The rich pay the initial costs anyway . Soon , it becomes more popular , and slowly percolates down into the public system , where it is accessible to everyone .

The point is , the rich still subsidise the initial costs of developement , because they are the first benificiaries , and the others , who want to freeload off the rich , still get the treatment , at a lower cost , later .

Of course , such a system is unviable in the long run ( as are almost all types of coercive statist wealth and services redistribution schemes ) , but it's good to go for a long time - Canada is a wealthy country after all .

I say again - it does not penalise the poor , it rewards the rich , but they pay for it , and the ultimate cost to the poor comes out to be less , because the rich have borne the initial costs .

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Yes but, what percentage of our population lives within 200 miles of the US border?

Using a density number that includes 3 people living in a thousand square miles of the arctic isn't very honest, eh? Do you think we spend 300 times as much per person on them?

Sweden's population is also focused on urban centres.

15% of Swedes live in rural areas.

http://www.map21ltd.com/COSTC11/sw-planning.htm

22% of Canadians live in rural areas.

(This is like shooting fish in a barrel)

You seem intent on denying the obvious.

Canada needs to spend more money to provide health care to isolated areas, whether it is a hospital for the 5,000 people in The Pas, Manitoba, or transporting sick people by plane to hospitals where they can get proper care, providing accomodation for parents who accompany their sick children.

You can stick your head in the ground, but you can't deny that these cost exists.

[Kuciwalker]

People who live in rural areas don't deserve medical care.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Tingkai


Sweden's population is also focused on urban centres.

15% of Swedes live in rural areas.

http://www.map21ltd.com/COSTC11/sw-planning.htm

22% of Canadians live in rural areas.

(This is like shooting fish in a barrel)

You seem intent on denying the obvious.

Canada needs to spend more money to provide health care to isolated areas, whether it is a hospital for the 5,000 people in The Pas, Manitoba, or transporting sick people by plane to hospitals where they can get proper care, providing accomodation for parents who accompany their sick children.

You can stick your head in the ground, but you can't deny that these cost exists.

And they are a small fraction of the total costs.

The big costs are in the hospitals in the major cities, whether people live there or have to travel there.

You can stick your head in the sand and insist that a public only system is the best. You will be in good company among the Cubans and North Koreans.

[notyoueither]

Incidently, it sounds very comparable. Except these guys say 80% urban.

http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/BasicFactsheet____6048.aspx

Sweden is a large country with a small population (8.9 million). This population is far from evenly distributed, half being concentrated in just 3% of the country's area. Around 1880, when industrialisation was just beginning in Sweden, only some two out of every ten persons lived in urban areas. It then became increasingly difficult for the rural population to support itself in the traditional way in agriculture or forestry. Industrialisation created a demand for labour, and since factories were usually located in urban areas people started to move from the countryside. By 1930, half of Sweden's population was urbanised. Today, eight out of ten live in conurbations* in the south of the country, the largest of which are the capital Stockholm, Göteborg (Gothenburg) and Malmö. The population of the countryside, especially the northern two thirds, is extremely sparse-three inhabitants per square kilometre in Norrbotten, the northernmost county, compared to 253 in Stockholm.

Talk about herring in the pickle barrel, or something.

[Ben Kenobi]

You're overstating the case. No one dies from not having an eye exam, while mammograms deal with cancer.

IIRC, you wear glasses. So you think the government should pay for eye exams, but you're opposed to medicare.

Sounds like you want medicare to cover your problems while denying benefits to solve other people's problems.

Actually I do not believe the government should pay for my hearing aids, and my routine hearing checkups simply because of the costs involved. I don't think it is reasonable to ask the government to pay several thousand dollars for the very small portion of people who cannot hear.

However, eye examinations, are another matter entirely. Up until the last while, they changed the policy to cut eye examinations from medicare in British Columbia, which had up until then, been covered. Yes, people will not die from not having a routine checkup, but to become blind is very catastrophic to the well being of anyone.

I can't recall any surveys done about whether abortions should be covered by medicare. Can you provide any links?

http://www.cbcwatch.ca/?q=node/view/1048

There are numerous situations where abortion provide a medical benefit, where pregnancy puts a woman's life at risk, or effects her mental health.

I wholeheartedly agree with you in the situations where the life of the mother is in danger, however, you must understand that all pregnancies pose some effect on the mental health of the mother. Is abortion then the proper treatment for all pregnancies, just because all pregnancies have an effect on the mental health of the mother?

Why should abortion be considered part of 'universal medical coverage'? Oh, I don't know, maybe because it is a medical procedure.

It is a surgical procedure, an elective surgical procedure. Like other elective procedures it is medically unnecessary, except in cases where the life of the mother is in danger.

[Wezil]

For supporters of "public health":

1) Are other countries coming to Canada to see how we deliver healthcare so they may emulate our system? If so, who?

2) Do we do away with the 2nd tier that exists now (an estimated 30% of total dollars)?

3) How would you improve the current system w/o increasing the private portion that already exists? Is it simply a question of more money?

[notyoueither]

http://www.cbc.ca/national/rex/rex_050609.html

The sacred Charter cat is among the holy health care pigeons

June 9 2005

The sacred Charter cat is among the holy health care pigeons.

The Supreme Court has just done something as radical in this country as any court here has done any time. It has more than nudged the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a document most dear to this country, towards a collision with the one social policy that many think defines this country, universal medicare. No private health care.

On a political front, the Quebec decision may have more impact than the various provincial court decisions on same-sex marriage. Expect the Liberals to leap to the defence of medicare as we know it with the eagerness of the nearly doomed reaching for the life raft. At last, something other than Gomery and Grewal.

It's also an interesting decision because this decision, if it's an example of the dreaded judicial activism, always a problematic term, is activism towards the right side of the spectrum. All of those who saw the enlightenment of court leadership on same-sex may have to limber up to find the flexibility to dam the reactionary impulse of this one. But it's what the court has said and what this decision implicitly acknowledges that is the real bundle of explosive here.

That the system that Canadians treasure, that has become our litmus and brand as a society, which cares for its members, the health care system has become, in practice, a turmoil, a frustration, and a disappointment on a daily basis for a very long time for just too many Canadians.

It has also said that leaving it alone to preserve the purity of it as an idea is not worth the cost of all the inconvenience, anxiety, and sometimes even danger that waiting lists and stretched out appointments and insensitivity to the particular suffering patient or family is not an option.

The decision has also called the bluff of the governments that have stalled real reform, done their endless commissions and reports, kept promising from at least Mulroney to Martin to fix what isn't in experience really working and exposed a fair bit of hypocrisy too.

That in Quebec already there is so-called private care. That those who can't afford for their health to wait are already being driven to go out of the country, and that the really well off and sometimes the well connected find a way around the lines and the waiting lists. That's not in the decision itself, but it is the open secret of our so much self-lauded system, that it is already broken, worked around or in emergency bypassed.

Finally, the initial response from the government that this is just Quebec and that the health care system across Canada is safe is platitude and poppycock. One decision, remember, in Ontario begat same-sex decisions in seven other provinces. The Charter is a bigger idea than the ideology of health care, and the Charter will trump whenever it is raised. This court decision may do what a million royal commissions haven't: force a real fix on the system as it is or open the system up to some mix that will deliver true health care to those people who need it when they need it. I can hear that sacred cat purring. For "The National," I'm Rex Murphy