Canada's Private Clinics Surge as Public System Falters

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Odin


Our system rations just as much as yours does, the only difference is that your system spreads out the pain evenly while ours concentrates the pain towards poor people. What's fairer? Our system basically says rich people have more right to healthcare than poor people, thats evil.

As evil as the right to more food? Or any food at all?

[notyoueither]

And we don't spread out the pain evenly.

The chattering classes tend to get better care. They 'know people' or someone makes a value decision that they 'deserve it'.

The rich and very rich say '**** this, I'm going to the States' if they come down with a serious problem.

The people left 'paying the price' of our ideologically driven system are the middle class. They have the ability to pay for insurance to cover private care, but they are not allowed to, because that would not be egalitarian. It's a crock.

What is sought is a better system. One where we spend top dollar (publically and privately) among OECD countries and we get top care. I am sure we can do it, if we try and can break out of the Communist mindset.

[Zkribbler]

On the other hand, U.S. oldsters cross into Canada to buy their drugs.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by notyoueither

There are other choices than the Cuban and the American systems (I say Cuban because legend has it that only Canada, Cuba, and North Korea seek to ban private medicine).

Incidently, it isn't lack of funds. Canada spends more per capita on health than most of the OECD.

True, but most of Europe and industrialized Asia has a two tier system (I.E. a public sector giving universal care plus private supplimental insurance for those who can afford it) and it seems to work well. Canada should just copy them.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
On the other hand, U.S. oldsters cross into Canada to buy their drugs.

It would be great if we applied the same system as with drugs.

The GoC mandates what drugs can be sold for. The market is free to sell the drugs.

What we have in health care is that it is illegal for a private enterprise to run a hospital. There is no market. There is no real incentive to perform more procedures outside of a few carefully tracked test cases.

This sacred cow is backed up by the unions big time.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Oerdin


True, but most of Europe and industrialized Asia has a two tier system (I.E. a public sector giving universal care plus private supplimental insurance for those who can afford it) and it seems to work well. Canada should just copy them.

Yes.

We will, once we get past the hysteria that anything other than the Cuban model is 'the American system!' Aaaahhhhhh! Run for your lives!

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
On the other hand, U.S. oldsters cross into Canada to buy their drugs.

That's because Canada has drug laws which aren't designed to jack up prices for the benefit of politically connected drug companies. It is a crime that the US won't allow Medicare to bargin for prices the same as every company in the US does. As it is the Republican written medicare drug benefit only benefits drug companies and consumers hardly see a drop in prices. It's just a big subsidy which does nothing.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by notyoueither
There is no real incentive to perform more procedures outside of a few carefully tracked test cases.

I would think reform political candidates demanding faster health services would appeal to voters.

[notyoueither]

Read the openning article. It's the third rail of Canadian politics. Touch it and you die, as a politician.

Reform has been accomplished by the Supreme Court. They don't need to be reelected.

[notyoueither]

Most of the Liberal and Conservative (as in the parties) politicians are bull****ting. They know that we are getting very poor results from the public system on a dollar per treatment basis. However, they continue to say that the public system will be maintained despite the reforms they are itching to introduce.

Meanwhile, the private sector, emblodened by the SCoC, are willing to push their projects and dare the provinces to bring them into court. The provinces will do no such thing, since the premiers by and large agree that the system is unsustainable as historically established.

All we need now are private insurers, and the second tier will be complete. That will be the next court battle.

Only the NDP stand in real opposition to this, and even many NDP premiers will not want to stand in the way of the movement that the SCoC unleashed.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Says the guy who doesn't mind dogs getting faster care than most Canadians...

Face it. Your utopian view of unions running the system with the government paying the freight simply doesn't work very well.

Get with the 21st century.

It has nothing to do with any of your paranoid conspiracy theories.

People are simply not paying enough tax to fund the system at an adequate level - mainly due to the right wing lunatics you support whining on about tax cuts. As usual, people want to have their cake and eat it too. If they had a proper education they might actually understand how the system works.

However, it's not as bad as the bat****insane right wingers say - public healthcare is simply the most efficient way of organizing a health system. You can have two tier to clear up around the edges if you like, but the vast majority of healthcare provision in an efficient society will be channeled through public funding. Canadians pay less and get more than Americans as a whole when it comes to healthcare - it has been that way for decades and it remains so.

You simply don't know what you are talking about. Why is it that you persist with your ill-informed trash when you have repeatedly demonstrated that you don't have a clue why our societies are organized the way they are.

Oerdin

True, but most of Europe and industrialized Asia has a two tier system (I.E. a public sector giving universal care plus private supplimental insurance for those who can afford it) and it seems to work well. Canada should just copy them.

The problem with this is that the people who want to introduce two tier medicare are the ones who also want to underfund the public system. It's not a straight swap -- all other things being equal you will pay more for the same level of healthcare under a market system because markets generally suck at allocating healthcare resources, the same way they suck at funding the police, or providing education. There's a reason everyone else uses public funding to do it -- it's more efficient than a private market.

If you have a two-tier system it is better to have the private clinics offer marginal services.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon


It has nothing to do with any of your paranoid conspiracy theories.

People are simply not paying enough tax to fund the system at an adequate level - mainly due to the right wing lunatics you support whining on about tax cuts. As usual, people want to have their cake and eat it too. If they had a proper education they might actually understand how the system works.

However, it's not as bad as the bat****insane right wingers say - public healthcare is simply the most efficient way of organizing a health system. You can have two tier to clear up around the edges if you like, but the vast majority of healthcare provision in an efficient society will be channeled through public funding. Canadians pay less and get more than Americans as a whole when it comes to healthcare - it has been that way for decades and it remains so.

You simply don't know what you are talking about. Why is it that you persist with your ill-informed trash when you have repeatedly demonstrated that you don't have a clue why our societies are organized the way they are.

Where does Canada rank among OECD countries in health spending?

If Canada's system is so great, why do only Cuba and North Korea go along with this model?

Ill-informed? We'll see.

Originally posted by Agathon
Oerdin

True, but most of Europe and industrialized Asia has a two tier system (I.E. a public sector giving universal care plus private supplimental insurance for those who can afford it) and it seems to work well. Canada should just copy them.

The problem with this is that the people who want to introduce two tier medicare are the ones who also want to underfund the public system. It's not a straight swap -- all other things being equal you will pay more for the same level of healthcare under a market system because markets generally suck at allocating healthcare resources, the same way they suck at funding the police, or providing education. There's a reason everyone else uses public funding to do it -- it's more efficient than a private market.

If you have a two-tier system it is better to have the private clinics offer marginal services.

Really hoping you'll back your blathering up with something other than dung throwing.

[Dinner]

Thanks but I didn't post that so please don't associate my name with it. Or at least make it clear that I was the inner quote and not the outter quote.

[notyoueither]

If it wasn't obvious before, it is now.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Oerdin


True, but most of Europe and industrialized Asia has a two tier system (I.E. a public sector giving universal care plus private supplimental insurance for those who can afford it) and it seems to work well. Canada should just copy them.

Not necessarily. In a two-tier system, public hospitals are often underfunded and crowded with long waiting lists. There is less political pressure to fix the public hospitals because the elite uses private hospitals.