OK guys! If all you ever look for, is reasons why the Canadian health care system is bad - that is all you will find! If you look for the good aspects of the Canadian health care system - you will find plenty!
If you want an improved health care system, you have to keep an open mind to all options. The USA should have one of the most cost effective systems in the world. With the technology available and the economies of scale from such a large population - it should be easy. So, why is it THE most expensive system in the world by a large margin? And, why is the US system so poorly rated when compared to other OECD nations?
If you want to maintain the status quo because you don't want any more government involvement, that's fine. But don't claim that you like the status quo because it's the best system in the world - you would be DEAD WRONG!
I'll state, for the umpteenth time, that the Canadian system has plenty of problems and I would not advise the USA to copy it, lock, stock and barrel. BUT, with all its faults, it is a more effective system than that in the USA.
There are more un-insured and under-insured Americans than the entire population of Canada. If you aren't at all concerned about them, I consider that callous and insensitive. Remember the saying: "There, but for the grace of God, go I..."
NOW, I'm done commenting. And Highfigh, I don't mind having differences of opinions. It's all good.
I'm positive that a lot of why our health care costs are so bloated is the tendency to sue for malpractice when something goes wrong. That's also the reason the first thing to happen is that some hump comes in to have the patient sign a form that says "In case something goes wrong, I will not sue this hospital....etc" when someone goes to a hospital for a non-life threatening injury. That's what happened when I narfed my left index finger when I was using my router with the brand new tongue & groove bit. There was very little going on there that day and I was still there for 5 hours. After the signature, they took me in for an X-ray to see if it hit the bone (they would have to treat it as an open fracture). I could have told them it hadn't, but they don't care that it was obviously just a flesh wound. Then, after I sat there for an hour, they came in to look at it and wash it out. They looked, conferred, brought in the brains of the operation (no pun intended) and after 5 seconds, said that since the fat layer hadn't come loose with the skin, they wouldn't be able to stitch it closed, so she went to a drawer, got a pair of small scissors and cut the flap of skin off. For that 5 second look and little snip, the bill showed $585 for "outpatient surgery". They put a non-stick pad on it (which was anything
but non-stick), made an appointment to see a hand specialist and prescribed an antibiotic and Vicodin. I never used the Vicodin because it never hurt enough, although a little something would have been nice when the non-stick pad was being unstuck.
If I had known what events would have occurred, I would have gone to the walk-in clinic, or snipped the skin off, myself. Five hours for that was absurd.
Also, because of how Medicaid pays for some procedures, doctors need to wear roller skates in order to make enough for it to be worthwhile. This means a doctor may see so many patients that they read some charts, go from patient to patient and eventually, they don't even know who they're dealing with.
I was talking with the guy who pays $2K/mo and he has a customer who's a cardiologist. He gets $64 for a stress test. He had some fat POS come in for that and they flat-lined. He brought them back to life and it took 8 hours for the patient to be stable enough for transport. He submitted the bill and everything except the stress test was denied.
I don't have much faith in the medical profession. Sure, they can do amazing things to repair people in a lot of situations but in a meatball "get-'em in and move 'em out" situation, I don't want some. Too many people take absolutely no care of themselves and expect miracles when they break a leg just from walking down the street or latch up after walking up a flight of stairs. Our system is broken and throwing money at it won't fix it, using a national insurance program, or not. It needs to be repaired, people need to be told that sitting in front of their TV for an evening and eating more than the average Third World person gets in a month isn't a good way to live. Mandatory exercise programs and weight loss programs would be a great start. If more preventive medicine was used, our health care costs would plummet, IMO. The two main causes of death are heart disease and certain cancers, usually from smoking cigarettes.
The status quo isn't good but neither is what the current administration wants. I just read an article that showed the likely cost of the "recovery" will be about $24 Trillion. With a population estimate of 305 Million, that's almost $79K for every single person.
What would we do with all of the extra people if we were to cut the mortality rate?
