Tag Archives: Single-Payer

News

Canadians moving to allow more private options for health care

08/17/2009 Wintery Knight 1 Comment

Story from the Associate Press. (H/T Newsbusters)

Excerpt:

The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country’s health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.

Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country – who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting – recognize that changes must be made.

“We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press. […]

[Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA] has been saying since his return that “a health-care revolution has passed us by,” that it’s possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and “that competition should be welcomed, not feared.”

In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

And here is the most important part:

“(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now – if it keeps on going without change – is not sustainable,” said Doig.

“They have to look at the evidence that’s being presented and will be presented at (the meeting) and realize what Canada’s doctors are trying to tell you, that you can get better care than what you’re getting and we all have to participate in the discussion around how do we do that and of course how do we pay for it.”

My most recent post on the problems of health care in Canada is here.

Further study

Learn more about health care with my previous posts on health care:

If the Canadians are running away from single-payer, why are we running towards it?

News

How is government-run health care working out in Canada?

08/13/2009 Wintery Knight 4 Comments

This Vancouver Sun story was linked at Unambigously Ambidextrous and the Heritage Foundation. (H/T DJ)

Excerpt:

Dr. Brian Brodie, president of the BC Medical Association, called the proposed surgical cuts “a nightmare.”

“Why would you begin your cost-cutting measures on medically necessary surgery? I just can’t think of a worse place,” Brodie said.

According to the leaked document, Vancouver Coastal — which oversees the budget for Vancouver General and St. Paul’s hospitals, among other health-care facilities — is looking to close nearly a quarter of its operating rooms starting in September and to cut 6,250 surgeries, including 24 per cent of cases scheduled from September to March and 10 per cent of all medically necessary elective procedures this fiscal year.

Now consider this story about elderly patients and euthaaisia, from the Washington Examiner. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

“I recommend that you seriously consider a “do not resuscitate” order, said the seemingly nice man in the white coat. “He has diminishing quality of life. And, if he has an infection or illness, we can provide comfort care for him.”

[…]An emergency room doctor made similar comments. She suggested that I did not need to feed him now that he was unable to feed himself–in essence suggesting euthanasia for a man who simply had an infection treatable with antibiotics.

[…]Despite the persistent infection, Dad was discharged because his temperature fell one-tenth of one point below the Medicare guideline for hospitalization. I begged the doctor to let him stay, citing his Blue Cross Blue Shield coverage. The doctor insisted that Medicare ruled and that my father was safer outside of the hospital where he would be less likely to contract a secondary infection.

I did what most people do; I trusted the authoritative person in the white coat. It was a fatal mistake. The lingering infection led to complications that killed him a few weeks later.

Rationing of care to the elderly is already taking place in government-run programs like Medicare. I don’t think we should expand government control any further.

This is the problem with making health care “free”. Everybody wants to use it. So demand is HIGH. But the government doesn’t have unlimited money, so supply is LOW. That’s why there is a SHORTAGE. And that’s why waiting lists, rationing, euthanasia and service cuts are needed.