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Discussion (2)¬

1. kuniakiraka says:

   August 12, 2009 at 3:46 pm

   I actually live in Canada:

   First off, the Canadian health care is not perfect and will probably never be. Two of our biggest problems is wait time and the Shortage of Doctors. We have the former problem primarily because of the latter problem. We have the latter problem, in part, because of something we call “Brain Drain”.
   Many Canadian educated doctors travel south to the US because they feel they can make more money there (sometimes true.)
   Because of the size of our country and the distribution of the population, much of the northern rural areas are under represented by doctors as 10 doctors for every 100 people may mean that someone in these rural areas may have to travel hours to get to the nearest doctor. (The Canadian government is willing to pay doctors a premium to service these areas.
   Also, on the pretense of “Maintaining the Canadian Standard for Healthcare Professionals”, many immigrant doctors – trained in other countries (including England) – find it hard, if not impossible, to become accredited to practice in Canada within a reasonable time span.

   The second point that needs to be clarified is that while Canada is a Confederacy with a strong Federal Government and smaller Provincial Government, Quebec has been from the very founding of Canada, in someways an anomaly. They have a different set of rules to play by than the rest of Canada. Stephen Harper went so far as to proclaim it “A Nation within A Naton” last year (This didn’t sit well with most of Canada). As such, stating that the Quebec Healthcare is representative of the Canadian healthcare system is misleading at best.

   It is under the Provincial Government’s mandate that healthcare is provided in Canada. The Federal government provides a broad direction and budgets funding, but it is the Provincial government that is charged with providing the services.
   In Ontario, we have OHIP (the Ontario Healthcare Insurance Plan). You read that right. An INSURANCE plan. The province pays for this plan with tax revenues. They also negotiate the coverage with the insurance provider. As such, not every medical treatment is free ($2.00 premium to fill out a doctor’s prescription at the pharmacy), and there are limits to the frequency of some services ($75.00 of optometry coverage in 2 years – cost of 1 visit.). If you are not an Ontario resident but a Canadian Citizen, you will be treated to the healthcare you need first, then additional paperwork follows after. You twill not be refused the medical treatment you need.

   The flip side to this is all emergency and primary healthcare is “free” and accessible by all. This does bring peace of mind. When my infant son fell off our bed and hit his head on our floor, he was treated within minutes of arriving at the emergency room. When he put plastic balls up his nostrils, -we had to wait because it wasn’t immediately life threatening, but – he was treated fairly promptly without any cost to us. When my sister was choking, an ambulance came and the emergency medical personel save her life without a word or worry about whether or not we were covered and if they would get paid.

   This I think is the biggest advantage I see that the Canadian system has over the American system. The doctors and other medical professionals are free to do their work without having to wonder whether or not they will get paid for it. They are free to focus on providing healthcare.

   There is no “bureaucrat standing between me and my doctor”. That bureaucrat negotiates with the medical community on a regular basis and leaves the doctor free to “patch me up.”

   Thirdly, The family doctor is the “first line” of healthcare system. Most people have them, and those who don’t have access to emergency rooms and walk in clinics that I found to be open everyday . The family doctor is usually consulted first and recommends the required tests bloodworks etc. In this way, the superfulous tests (like the blood test that some just decides they want to have done) do not clog up an already busy (if not overcapacity) system.

   I wonder if Crowder realizes how ironic his statements about “two tiered Healthcare” and only the super rich will be able to access the “good healthcare”. I sure was LOL as he said these things.

   Here’s an arcticle that ran in todays edition of the Toronto Sun newspaper that gives some comparisons to the US and Canadian healthcare system: http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/08/12/10434126-sun.html
2. UNSCDF1 says:

   October 16, 2009 at 12:37 pm

   …And as a result, getting payed a set amount stifles incentive to do better in what you do in your job, if doing it “just good enough” gets you payed no matter what. Wait times and bad diagnostics sound not so bad if its on a list against 10 good points of a system, unless of course the weight of the bad points outweighs all the good ones. You see the reasoning behind not having government control the lives of the people? It’s pretty much common sense that if it makes living worse all around, regardless of saving a limited amount of money in the short run, then it shouldn’t be done and is why people who know of a better option doesn’t wanted government controlled (socialized) health care. It’s as simple as that.