Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies In Ruins

[cwo_ghwebb]

Its Architect Admits



As this presidential campaign continues, the candidates' comments about health care will continue to include stories of their own experiences and anecdotes of people across the country: the uninsured woman in Ohio, the diabetic in Detroit, the overworked doctor in Orlando, to name a few.

Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay's work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.


Second thoughts about that socialized medicine thing?



Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies In Ruins, Its Architect Admits

Looks like they learned the core truth about healthcare, that being that providers costs (salaries) and not insurance is the biggest cost associated with providing care. Once you've tapped as many tax dollars as you can, you have to start cutting back on salaries, and when you do you quickly learn all that high-minded talk about "I just want to help people" is a lot of hooey, and the providers bail out of the system.

[vraiblonde]

Originally Posted by Bruzilla

the providers bail out of the system.

Well sure. You get an education and work hard to make a good living. If everyone just wanted a cushy job where they didn't have to do much, got paid okay, and were immune to being fired, we'd be a nation of civil service workers. No offense to anyone.

As it stands, there are people who want to be RICH! and have some stuff. Nobody ever became wealthy working for the state or federal government, unless you're a Congressman who can do some influence peddling.

Originally Posted by vraiblonde

Well sure. You get an education and work hard to make a good living. If everyone just wanted a cushy job where they didn't have to do much, got paid okay, and were immune to being fired, we'd be a nation of civil service workers. No offense to anyone.

As it stands, there are people who want to be RICH! and have some stuff. Nobody ever became wealthy working for the state or federal government, unless you're a Congressman who can do some influence peddling.

Nothing wrong with wanting to be rich, but that means that somebody has to pay for you to be rich. When it comes to doctors, people have been conditioned to never dare challenge how much a doctor is charging for several reasons:

- The "they paid a lot for their education/they have to pay for malpractice insurance" argument.
- The "they are doing God's work by saving peoples' lives" argument.
- The "how dare you put a price on my health and well being" argument.
- The "insurance is paying for it" argument.

Yes, doctors do invest a ton of time and money into their education, but what's the value of that investment? Should it be so the doctor can charge $40 an hour for their services? $400 an hour? $4,000 an hour? Doctors are free to charge whatever they like and most people don't care because the cost is shared across many people. And when insurers try to get fees more structured, so more people can get service at lower costs to themselves, the doctors threaten to abandon the plan. We see that down here in the medical insurance industry and now Canada is seeing it with their public system.

So, Canada is learning, and hopefully Americans will as well, that it's not insurers that drive costs, it's providers. And as long as most people have this "they deserve as much money as they can make" mindset, the providers will keep hiking the costs and folks will keep paying more and more in premiums or taxes... while the folks who decry any controls on provider incomes will be whining and crying about how their healthcare costs so much.

[Vince]

And you're still going to have people like Hillary that think socialized medicine will work.

[ImnoMensa]

When you make something free, you have millions of people looking to bleed that freebie.

[wintersprings]

I was getting my radiation treatment (For Cancer) and in walked a Canadian, who left the system up there, because 1) they do not even test men for Prostate cancer, and 2) if you get it, they have one (1) answer, and it is surgery, or nothing. They don't test men, to save money.

Folks there are now many cures for cancer, never let anyone (Gee the government) tell you, you must do their treatment.

Please look around, find the facts, then act.

[cwo_ghwebb]

Originally Posted by Bruzilla

Nothing wrong with wanting to be rich, but that means that somebody has to pay for you to be rich. When it comes to doctors, people have been conditioned to never dare challenge how much a doctor is charging for several reasons:

- The "they paid a lot for their education/they have to pay for malpractice insurance" argument.
- The "they are doing God's work by saving peoples' lives" argument.
- The "how dare you put a price on my health and well being" argument.
- The "insurance is paying for it" argument.

Yes, doctors do invest a ton of time and money into their education, but what's the value of that investment? Should it be so the doctor can charge $40 an hour for their services? $400 an hour? $4,000 an hour? Doctors are free to charge whatever they like and most people don't care because the cost is shared across many people. And when insurers try to get fees more structured, so more people can get service at lower costs to themselves, the doctors threaten to abandon the plan. We see that down here in the medical insurance industry and now Canada is seeing it with their public system.

So, Canada is learning, and hopefully Americans will as well, that it's not insurers that drive costs, it's providers. And as long as most people have this "they deserve as much money as they can make" mindset, the providers will keep hiking the costs and folks will keep paying more and more in premiums or taxes... while the folks who decry any controls on provider incomes will be whining and crying about how their healthcare costs so much.

Our system is wayyyyy over-regulated. Fully one third of claims never get paid. The biggest cost in our system passes along to the consumer is malpractice insurance costs. The tort system is out of control in the United States, not only in regards to medical malpractice but overall. And since Congress is run by lawyers who get millions in campaign contributions from the trial lawyers, you can figure the odds on getting tort reform.

You state someone has to pay for one to get rich. Sounds like you bought into that economic theory of a zero sum economy which the Socialists push. There is a set amount of money in the pie, and we have to redistribute the pie equally among all the people. If that were true, Bill Gates got more than he deserved, after all the services his company provided weren't worth that much money.

Personally, I'd rather have a doctor tell me the procedure I would need for a problem, than some bean counter.

[puggymom]

Originally Posted by cwo_ghwebb

The tort system is out of control in the United States, not only in regards to medical malpractice but overall. And since Congress is run by lawyers who get millions in campaign contributions from the trial lawyers, you can figure the odds on getting tort reform.

I was about to say didn't someone post something about tort reform and how well it was working in Texas?

[cwo_ghwebb]

Originally Posted by puggymom

I was about to say didn't someone post something about tort reform and how well it was working in Texas?

Without tort reform, doctors and hospitals are performing tests and procedures to CYA. We look at our bills very carefully as my wife is a cancer survivor and my mother-in-law had open heart surgery and was on dialysis three times a week before she passed. Unfortunately we get lots of those bills; fortunately, we have insurance.

We would get stupid items on the bill such as 'pregnancy tests' for $165 for an 83 year old woman! When questioned about the bill, the hospital told us it was standard procedure required by insurance companies. Stupid.

I realize some doctors are gaming the system, believe me. We don't blindly file away our copies of the bills our insurance companies obligingly send to us. If a doctor hasn't provided services they've claimed, we protest the item to Medicare/Medicaid or the insurance company. The dialysis center was charging $1,300 a session for my mother-in-law and was claiming they provided the service a week after we buried her!