Does Socialized Medicine Work?

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Kidicious

Are you denying that doctors are paid more in Canada than they are in Cuba?

*sigh*

Again with Cuba. Do you have this country on the brain or what? I suspect we have more doctors from india/pakistan than Cuba. What is with your fascination with this country?

Yes, doctors make more here than in foreign countries but they don't make more than Cdn trained doctors. It doesn't cost us anything extra - in fact we SAVE $$ by not having to train them. The countries of origin pay.

[Wezil]

I have to make a road trip Kid. I'll check in later today.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil
*sigh*

Again with Cuba. Do you have this country on the brain or what? I suspect we have more doctors from india/pakistan than Cuba. What is with your fascination with this country?

Being a doctor in Cuba has good benefits. There are twice as many doctors per capita in Cuba than in Canada. That means that doctors don't have to work like a burger flipper in a fast food restaurant. Doctors in Cuba even make housecalls. Doctors in Cuba don't have to work to make money for the rich, at the expense of their country.

Yes, doctors make more here than in foreign countries but they don't make more than Cdn trained doctors. It doesn't cost us anything extra - in fact we SAVE $$ by not having to train them. The countries of origin pay.

The premium is the difference between the pay in Canada and that of Cuba. What Canada saves has nothing to do with it. That just means that Canada will be willing to pay the premium.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Kidicious

Being a doctor in Cuba has good benefits. There are twice as many doctors per capita in Cuba than in Canada. That means that doctors don't have to work like a burger flipper in a fast food restaurant. Doctors in Cuba even make housecalls. Doctors in Cuba don't have to work to make money for the rich, at the expense of their country.

Okay.... but why do you focus on Cuba? I claimed we were poaching from 3rd world countries yet you continue to focus on a country I didn't single out. Why didn't you pick Nigeria?

Canada has accepted Cuban refugees for a very long time now. I would be surprised if there weren't a few doctors in the mix. Does this mean they make up a significant portion of our foreign trained doctors? I doubt it (and will insist on a cite from you if you continue down this path).

The premium is the difference between the pay in Canada and that of Cuba. What Canada saves has nothing to do with it. That just means that Canada will be willing to pay the premium.

You are comparing apples and oranges. It doesn't matter what this person would make in Nigeria it matters what it will cost us to employ this person. Wages are no more than a Canadian's would be yet we don't have to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars in training cost. If you consider this "paying a premium" then all I can say is bring it on. I hope we can pay that sort of premium in every area of government spending.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil
Okay.... but why do you focus on Cuba? I claimed we were poaching from 3rd world countries yet you continue to focus on a country I didn't single out. Why didn't you pick Nigeria?

Canada has accepted Cuban refugees for a very long time now. I would be surprised if there weren't a few doctors in the mix. Does this mean they make up a significant portion of our foreign trained doctors? I doubt it (and will insist on a cite from you if you continue down this path).

I only know a little about Cuba, because I'm a commie, and we are interested in how communism is working out there.

I don't have any particular interest in why doctors from Nigeria work in Canada.

You are comparing apples and oranges. It doesn't matter what this person would make in Nigeria it matters what it will cost us to employ this person. Wages are no more than a Canadian's would be yet we don't have to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars in training cost. If you consider this "paying a premium" then all I can say is bring it on. I hope we can pay that sort of premium in every area of government spending.

This is driving up your health care costs though because you have a doctors shortage. Also, less people will want to be doctors because they have to work so hard.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Kidicious

I only know a little about Cuba, because I'm a commie, and we are interested in how communism is working out there.

I don't have any particular interest in why doctors from Nigeria work in Canada.

I can understand that but I think Cuba is a poor example for this discussion. Health care in Cuba is well funded by 3rd world standards so I would expect the conditions there to be better for doctors than my example of Nigeria. That is why I suspect the # of Cuban MDs in Canada would be more limited to the refugee flow (and not a factor of regular immigration as with other countries).

This is driving up your health care costs though because you have a doctors shortage.

This is where our thinking differs. I concede we have a doctor shortage. Explain how health care costs are being "driven up" by this policy of recruitment from abroad as opposed to training the doctors in Canada. How is this costing more? They will need to be paid regardless (unless you are saying we should just continue with the shortage and not bring doctors into the system from any source).

Also, less people will want to be doctors because they have to work so hard.

I'm not sure what your point is here. I never had any interest in medicine and that was certainly part of the reason. What does foreign recruitment have to do with Canadians wanting to do the hard work to be doctors?

[Kidlicious]

It costs more because there are less doctors. Third world countries aren't pumping out enough doctors for you. Otherwise, sure, it would be cost effective for you to bring in all the doctors you need from countries like Nigeria. But the fact that you do have to train your own doctors means that there aren't enough doctors coming from other countries.

On my second point the better the working conditions for doctors the more people will want to become doctors, also reducing salaries.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Kidicious
It costs more because there are less doctors. Third world countries aren't pumping out enough doctors for you. Otherwise, sure, it would be cost effective for you to bring in all the doctors you need from countries like Nigeria. But the fact that you do have to train your own doctors means that there aren't enough doctors coming from other countries.

So really what you are saying is that it will cost us more to train our own doctors? Thank you. That was my point.

On my second point the better the working conditions for doctors the more people will want to become doctors, also reducing salaries.

I can see working conditions having an effect. Few people want to take a job where they will be overworked. I'm not sure how the #'s would affect salaries as we are a socialized system. The normal rules of supply and demand don't apply.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil
I can see working conditions having an effect. Few people want to take a job where they will be overworked. I'm not sure how the #'s would affect salaries as we are a socialized system. The normal rules of supply and demand don't apply.

You're health care system is socialized, but your society as a whole is capitalist. That means the #'s are determined by salaries.

[Wezil]

No, the #'s are determined by teaching spaces. We would produce many more Cdn doctors if we provided more spaces to train them. There is no shortage of applicants.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil
No, the #'s are determined by teaching spaces. We would produce many more Cdn doctors if we provided more spaces to train them. There is no shortage of applicants.

Then there is a bottleneck. But the point is that if there wasn't that bottleneck salaries would be lower.

[Wezil]

It is a bottleneck by choice. We don't want to spend the $$ required to train the required number of doctors (it is very expensive) so we instead try to fill the void (unsuccessfully) with foreign trained. Med schools in Ontario reduced the number of spots available not too long ago. This is part of the problem with socialized med - the government determines the demand that will be filled and puts the rest on waiting lists.

Salaries may be lower with no bottleneck (debatable in a socialized system) but overall health costs would rise dramatically as the shortage of doctors was addressed. This is the choice our government has made for us - keep costs down and provide too few doctors.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil
It is a bottleneck by choice. We don't want to spend the $$ required to train the required number of doctors (it is very expensive) so we instead try to fill the void (unsuccessfully) with foreign trained. Med schools in Ontario reduced the number of spots available not too long ago. This is part of the problem with socialized med - the government determines the demand that will be filled and puts the rest on waiting lists.

So your government is purposefully keeping doctors salaries artificially high. That's about the same way it works in the US too.

Salaries may be lower with no bottleneck (debatable in a socialized system) but overall health costs would rise dramatically as the shortage of doctors was addressed. This is the choice our government has made for us - keep costs down and provide too few doctors.

Huh? What costs would increase?

[Arrian]

Huh? What costs would increase?

1. It costs $$ to train doctors. More doctors trained = more $$ to train them.
2. More doctors, even if the average salary drops, means more $$ to pay them. 100 doctors at $100k/year costs less than 200 doctors at $75k/year.

I mean... damn. I just wandered into this thread, thought about it for 10 seconds, and came up with 2 plausible explanations for Wezil's assertion.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
1. It costs $$ to train doctors. More doctors trained = more $$ to train them.

Duh. That won't increase health care costs though.

2. More doctors, even if the average salary drops, means more $$ to pay them. 100 doctors at $100k/year costs less than 200 doctors at $75k/year.

That's only because you cherry picked the numbers to make your point.

But I'm not arguing that total national health care costs should decrease if we have more doctors. We would end up with more health care, in which case aggregate costs might not decrease.