Does Socialized Medicine Work?

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Kidicious

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

I see your point. This would be increased education costs. It doesn't matter what envelope the money comes from - the same taxpayer gets the bill.

Overall health costs would increase with more doctors as they won't work for free. The idea that salaries will drop with more doctors is not valid. Supply and demand does not work when government sets maximum fees. The only way salaries would drop would be if we somehow ended up with too many doctors that they couldn't meet the maximum billings.

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.

Agreed. If we had the required # of doctors we would have increased expenses all through the system (diagnostics, treatments, etc).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil
Supply and demand does not work when government sets maximum fees.

Yes it does, because the government can set the fees lower.

[Wezil]

Kid - If you are truly interested in the issue of health care in our system you may find this article interesting.

http://www.macleans.ca/science/health/article.jsp?content=20080102_122329_6200

The article is lengthy and deals mainly with issues created by the increase of female physicians in the workforce but it also gives a good overview of the problems in our system.

Canada’s doctor-patient ratio is among the worst of any industrialized nation: with just 2.2 physicians per thousand people, it ranks 24th out of 28 OECD countries (well below the average of three). And among the G8 countries, Canada ranks dead last when it comes to physician supply.

In Yarmouth, N.S., health officials launched a “doctor lottery” last January, inviting 8,000 orphan patients to enter their name in a raffle—for only 1,500 vacancies. Outrage ensued, best summarized by a local woman who had been doctorless for six years: “The luck of the draw,” she told media. “Have we come to that point now? It’s just terrible.”

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Yes it does, because the government can set the fees lower.

Yeah. No government will touch that one. Pissing off doctors is bad politics. It's been tried.

[Wezil]

Another article on the issue. This one mentions the problem that was the original point I was making about us poaching from poorer countries:

Relying on foreign-trained doctors is negatively affecting the supply of physicians in lower-income countries such as South Africa and India, a 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2006/08/28/doctor-shortage.html

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil
Another article on the issue. This one mentions the problem that was the original point I was making about us poaching from poorer countries:

Relying on foreign-trained doctors is negatively affecting the supply of physicians in lower-income countries such as South Africa and India, a 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2006/...-shortage.html

Yes, you're evil capitalists. Your evil capitalist system is ****ed, even if you have socialized health care.

[Wezil]

As a % of GDP we spend on health care what you guys spend on "defense". I guess evil is in the eye of the beholder.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil
As a % of GDP we spend on health care what you guys spend on "defense". I guess evil is in the eye of the beholder.

Yeah, just keep telling yourself that while you exploit the poor in the third world. I wonder how many people your health care system has killed.

[Wezil]

Send home all the Cdn doctors working in the US and we can talk again.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wezil
Send home all the Cdn doctors working in the US and we can talk again.

Canada is a not a third world nation. You have plenty of money to train doctors, yet you choose to exploit the third world instead. Your doctors are fair game. I have no guilt for keeping them here. You should send your doctors back to where they came from so that they can save lives in their home country.

[Wezil]

Double standard.