Canada's Private Clinics Surge as Public System Falters

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by VetLegion
So, if I understand correctly, in USA, if you don't have the money for cancer treatment, you don't get it? Cancer is not a quick killer usually so it wouldn't belong in the emergency care scheme. Right?

It might depend on the ability of hospital(s) in the area to provide free treatment. Or if there are any clinical trials going on that you could get into.

Generally speaking, you're probably SOL, IMO. You could get treatment to make you comfortable, but probably not anything that would put the cancer into remission.

[Az]

No not by a long shot. For example my uncle who had no insurance as a small struggling private business contracted cancer. He was afforded all types of cancer treatment including chemotherapies after it was pretty much decided his condition was untreatable.

He unfortunately passed away but not for lack of quality health care.

His widow likewise didn't have health insurance and was forced into bankruptcy but the hospitals knew they wouldn't get dime one from either of them from the outset and yet they still performed the treatments.

errr... that's not exactly a happy story....

[Asher]

Originally posted by Arrian
Summary of thread:

Neither the Canadian nor the American systems are all that great. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

Maybe neither of us have it right?

-Arrian

The problem is the frickin idiots in Ontario play whack-o-mole whenever a potential solution for the problem comes up. It's their way or the highway, even if it doesn't work. They paint Klein as an anti-Canadian villain, and tabloids like the Toronto Star even pick weird evil-looking photos of Klein when they talk about him.

As a side note, I read a couple articles from The Toronto Star on this issue today. What an utterly pathetic paper, unabashedly left-wing.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
15.7% in 2004 ~ 45 million

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/...th/005647.html

In California, it's 6.5 million uninsured out of 33.9 million people. If I calculated correctly, that's about 19% without health insurance.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Asher
pick weird evil-looking photos of Klein

How can you tell the difference?

[Drake Tungsten]

This must mean you're either among the dwindling number of Americans who still have health insurance

Yep. And I would never have to waste an entire day waiting to get a minor foot injury checked out in America. **** yeah.

[KrazyHorse]

Bull****. My friend's wife hurt her knee and it took 6 and a half hours for the doctor to see her.

[Drake Tungsten]

Maybe it's just Nebraska then. I was smart enough never to live in Baltimore.

[KrazyHorse]

That's with health insurance, by the way. And even though she was paying ~1400$US a year for that insurance (as a 23 year old woman on a group rate!) the hospital visit still cost her 350$ in copay and deductibles.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DanS
Careful. That 15% in the US isn't necessarily "the bottom of the pile." Many self-insure, like my parents.

Self-insured means you have insurance, unless you mean that they pay for all of their bills out of their own pockets.

[Zkribbler]

BTW: For those of us in the US who are fortunate enough to have health insurance, about 30% of the premiums go to hospitals, trauma centers, etc. to pay for services for the uninsured.

Isn't the American system fun??

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by notyoueither


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.

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

Originally posted by Agathon
Man, I wish I had NYE's brain...

...I could spend my day playing with blocks and crayons...

Colour me shocked.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Tingkai
"Recent trends in these negotiations and settlements threaten to become a major cost driver.
Even before the substantial increases in the past few years, the incomes of Canadian doctors and
nurses were at the very upper end of the OECD-country scale. In 1992, for example, physician
incomes in Canada were considerably higher than France, Australia, Japan, Sweden and the
United Kingdom. Only Germany and the United States had comparable or higher rates of
remuneration. The situation for nurses was similar. This leads the Commission to urge provider
associations and governments to consider the impact of future negotiations on the sustainability
of medicare."

Page 101-102 of the Romanov Report.

Funny. The percentage of health spending on doctors has gone down from 15 to 13% between 1975 and 2001.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/healthcare/priceofcare.html

D'Cruz notes that governments spent $36.5 billion on hospitals in 2003 – or 30 per cent of all health-care spending in the country. In 1975, hospitals accounted for 45 per cent of the health-care budget.

"This is a really dramatic change in emphasis," D'Cruz said. "In other words, hospitals have gone down very significantly as the primary spend in health care. They're still the number 1 spend, but they've gone down from 45 per cent to 30 per cent."

Spending on doctors has also fallen over the same period, from 15 per cent to 13 per cent. But spending on prescription drugs is rising faster than anything else in the health budget.

"We're spending more on drugs than we're spending on doctors in this country," D'Cruz said. "Drugs used to be nine per cent of the total spend in 1975 and drugs have now gone up to 16 per cent. Drugs have become the second most important component of health-care spending in this country."

Some of the money comes out of private pockets and some comes from private insurance companies. But most of it comes from governments, raised through tax revenue.

and here is a more realistic effect of being next to the US.

There is agreement on one thing. Health-care spending is eating up a larger share of provincial budgets, leaving less money to spend on other things like schools, roads and fighting pollution.

Janice McKinnon suggests less money for education, the environment and social programs affects people's health.

"The trend line in Canada is a very dramatic one and it's not sustainable with our taxation levels," McKinnon said. "If you compare us to European countries, one of the difficulties is they don't live next door to the United States. They are able to sustain higher levels of health spending, higher levels of education spending, higher levels of environment spending because they can have higher taxes. If our tax levels get too out of line, we lose people, we lose companies to the United States."

Lewis notes that in most polls, Canadians will say they're prepared to pay higher taxes, if it means better health care. "But I think the real choice dilemma is – at what point are we spending too much on health care relative to other social sectors where we might think the money can get better value?"

The irony at the heart of the debate about health-care costs is that spending on health care does not necessarily buy better health.

An OECD study of 24 countries ranked Canada 13th in terms of health. The study found that your health depends twice as much on your living situation as it does on the health-care system. It found that half the equation depends on education, social programs and the environment – things Canada has been squeezing out to pay for health care.

"If you look internationally, and you look at what you're getting for health-care spending, beyond about $600 or $700 US per person per year, there is literally no correlation between life expectancy, infant mortality, and how much you're spending," the University of Saskatchewan's Janice McKinnon said. "So countries that spend $800 to $1,000 Cdn have pretty much the same health care indicators as we do. And we're spending four times as much."

We are not free to tax as much as it would take to make our system work no matter the cost. The competitive force of the US affects our entire economy, not just health care wages.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave


while this was fine, he was forced into bankruptcy along with death... how did it affect the family etc... sounds scary... well at least they tried but

Yeah the whole situation sucked big time for the family. Both were tremendous people rich on spirit and freinds poor in terms of actual wealth. The upshot is his widow saddled with the hospital bills immediately claimed bankruptcy was able to keep the vehicle (they rented so she didn't keep the house) she moved and is on her feet and doing fine albeit with a completely destroyed credit record but doing fine, working and lcarrying on with her life.

The real point I was trying to make though was both my Uncle and his wife told the hospital there was no way they could pay the bills now or in the future but they were given treatment regardless.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by DanS
Careful. That 15% in the US isn't necessarily "the bottom of the pile." Many self-insure, like my parents.

Self-insured means you have insurance, unless you mean that they pay for all of their bills out of their own pockets.

Typically self-insurance means that you have enough money (or think you do) to handle whatever may come your way. While this is generally a good idea if you have the money (basically you make the margin that your insurer would have made), as I pointed out above you may not do as well when it comes to health insurance because you won't be able to negotiate for the significant cost reductions that most insurers receive from health care providers.