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Canadian Heathcare system sucks!!

Rolfe said:
I'm not clear that the proposed system is likely to put much of a crimp in unnecessary tests in the short term. What it is likely to do however is increase the numbers of necessary tests.
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The thing is that the proposed system has made a lot of compromises to get endorsements from the AMA and the American Nurses Association. They did not block the single payer plan 16 years ago when Clinton tried it.
Now I can see this is where Zig was coming from, but I don't view it in the same way he does. I think many US healthcare providers can see that more and more people are being priced out of there market, the way things are going, and take a considered view that getting state subsidy in to pull in these customers is in the long term better for business than continuing to milk an ever-decreasing number of milch cows.

Rolfe.
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Depends on how ever decreasing it is and what consessions you have to make for the new system.
 
Rolfe said:
No doubt. However, Canada and Europe and Australia and New Zealand and probably even Japan and Taiwan are absolutely crawling with people who have had extremely good care from universal systems. Most of them wouldn't even want more than their out-of-pocket expenses to tell everyone about it. Try Stephen and Gillian Hall.

I can see that air time is expensive and so on, but I would have thought something might be done. Even a little bit of digging into the real circumstances of some of these lying fairytales would make Joe the Plumber look like a model of straightforward honesty in comparison.

Rolfe.
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But there is no money in debunking them, as the proponents of Universal care do not have the same funding that its opponents do by orders of magnitude. They can barely afford a few lobbyists, they can not afford TV spots.

And the news agencies that could be showing the blatant dishonnesty behind the campaigns would rather put more celebrity gossip on the air than investigate these claims.
 
TBH I wouldn't quote the NHS stroke strategy as evidence of what will always happen in practice. In my experience it is something most regions are "working towards". There is a particular problem of smaller hospitals not having the necessary cover (of a consultant neurologist, radiologists etc) at the weekends and in the evenings - to be able to meet these standards. Some are tackling this problem by linking up hospitals by telemedicine (which I was involved with evaluating in my last job), others by diverting stroke cases to major hospitals if the ambulance is called "out of hours". But this is a problem they have in the US too.

If you are going to have a stroke, don't have it on a friday evening...
 
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ponderingturtle said:
But there is no money in debunking them, as the proponents of Universal care do not have the same funding that its opponents do by orders of magnitude. They can barely afford a few lobbyists, they can not afford TV spots.

And the news agencies that could be showing the blatant dishonnesty behind the campaigns would rather put more celebrity gossip on the air than investigate these claims.
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I believe you, and it's very sad. It's probably worse than that. The proprietors of the media outlets probably have a vested interest in the current system continuing, and so have no motivation to encourage any investigative journalism.

I suspect that if this were happening here, and the government was committed to reform, the government itself would pay for some counter-propaganda. Though whether anyone would believe that the government's line was the truth, I rather doubt.

Rolfe.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
TBH I wouldn't quote the NHS stroke strategy as evidence of what will always happen in practice.
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You're right, of course - the system isn't perfect. But the point is that its failures are failures to provide care to the entitled, and anyone not receiving the care can rightly and justifiably complain. In the USA, refusal to provide care are built into the system, as if by design (as the 'rogue' ex-CEO of an insurance company mentions in the video I posted recently).
 
I think if anyone receives substandard care because of the problems Professor Yaffle highlights, it is usually a problem of remote coverage rather than some specific universal-healthcare problem.

I find it difficult to believe that US patients could never encounter a similar snafu, even if they had the best health insurance money could buy. I've heard that some places in the USA are very remote. Could you really have a stroke anywhere and be guaranteed prompt specialist treatment?

Rolfe.
 
I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but if one wishes to learn about the Canadian health care system, one should probably start with a visit to the Health Canada web site home page. From there you should be able to find the answers to any questions on its related pages and links. It's a comprehensive site containing a great deal of material.
 
On the subject of what people with insurance in the US would have to give up, and how unpalatable we'd find it, having to share hospital rooms might honestly be an issue. American are accustomed to private rooms. I wouldn't mind it at all, but some might see it as evidence of greatly reduced quality.

Also, because here we have direct-to-consumer pharma advertising on TV, any new drug deemed "too expensive for little benefit" would be transformed into a grotesque human rights violation via commercials from the pharma company wishing to have their drug approved.

But I see these things as obstacles to be prepared for and dealt with, not evidence that UHC is essentially impossible in the US.
 
Rolfe said:
I find it difficult to believe that US patients could never encounter a similar snafu, even if they had the best health insurance money could buy. I've heard that some places in the USA are very remote. Could you really have a stroke anywhere and be guaranteed prompt specialist treatment?
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Yes! Paying for your health insurance only (and not anyone else's), will, like love, remove all obstacles. Everyone will be excellently qualified, never make mistakes, will be kind and loving and have nothing but your well-being in their hearts and minds. Bean-counting, money-loving bureaucrats do not even exist in this world. Let alone waiting lists.

Because you pay for it. :rolleyes:

Ooops, sorry, I think I was channeling Diane Furchtgott in a weak moment.

OT: Furchtgott means "feargod" in German, which gave me quite a chuckle. ;)
 
kellyb said:
On the subject of what people with insurance in the US would have to give up, and how unpalatable we'd find it, having to share hospital rooms might honestly be an issue. American are accustomed to private rooms. I wouldn't mind it at all, but some might see it as evidence of greatly reduced quality.
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And almost every hospital room I have seen here in the north east has been a two bed room, not a private room. Exceptions are cases like isolation rooms and ICU's. Well my niece got a private room in the childrens hospital but again that was a special room and not a general room.

So I would like to see evidence that most hospital rooms are private, I have been in many different hospitals and it seems the exeption rather than the norm.
 
kellyb said:
On the subject of what people with insurance in the US would have to give up, and how unpalatable we'd find it, having to share hospital rooms might honestly be an issue. American are accustomed to private rooms.
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We are? Really? I'm trying to think of all the times I've been in or visited people in hospitals. I can only think of two times I've seen a private room. Once for my wife recuperating after a particularly trying surgery and once for a friend in the psych ward.
 
The UK is currently moving towards a greater provision of single occupancy rooms. And if most of the capacity is already structured as single rooms, I can't imagine this would change. Its not like they are going to pull down all the hospitals and build new ones with wards.
 
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Professor Yaffle said:
The UK is currently moving towards a greater provision of single occupancy rooms. And if most of the capacity is already structured as single rooms, I can't imagine this would change. Its not like they are going to pull down all the hospitals and build new ones with wards.
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What she said. New hospitals here are being built mostly with single rooms.

Rolfe.
 
kellyb said:
Also, because here we have direct-to-consumer pharma advertising on TV, any new drug deemed "too expensive for little benefit" would be transformed into a grotesque human rights violation via commercials from the pharma company wishing to have their drug approved.
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Exactly what happens here. Apart from the direct advertising, but they can get round the lack of that. Who do you think bankrolled the campaign to have Herceptin approved on the NHS? And yet, we live!

Rolfe.
 
There was a little segment on the C4 news about "Obamacare". They highlighted how cherrypicked NHS stories are being used to frighten Americans. However, they didn't show the one's we've been horrified by. All it was was a quick clip of someone who'd been "denied" a cervical smear. Goodness knows how, because I recall advertisements on buses even in the 1970s exhorting every female over the age of 18 to go and get one. (It took the girls' grapevine to spread the word that anyone who was a virgin should not respond to this!) It's positively an invasion of privacy, the amount of pressure they put on you to have these tests. Unfortunately only a few seconds were shown, so it was impossible to tell where the misunderstanding was.

Rolfe.
 
They actually said "denied" a smear. As if she'd asked for one and been refused. I don't know about changing the age, but a decision to change the age parameters for routine screening (when the previous age was arguably too low, given the number of immature 18-year-olds who were caught in the net) is hardly "denying" the test.

What's the age for the test in the USA anyway? Is every 18-year-old screened there?

(And what about the dosh we've just spent vaccinating every single one of the brats against HPV, to protect them even more? Are American girls getting the vaccine free? Or have the antivax lunatics turned that into a bogeyman?)

Rolfe.
 
Thats nothing like the times I have given birth in England and Scotland. In England I was in a LDRP room (labour/delivery/recovery/postnatal room) where you stay in the same single room the whole time (well 3 different rooms, but thats a long story). I did have to get transferred up to postnatal because of complications, but I was only in the 4 bed ward for a couple of hours, then they found me a single room. In Scotland, I had a 6 hour discharge, so didn't have to leave the delivery room. In both places the labour rooms were fairly comfortable, with birthing balls etc and access to a pool if you wanted a water birth. I accept that some other hospitals don't meet the same standards, and that the midwifery profession is stretched at the moment - but it is something that seems to be being addressed.
 
Rolfe said:
(And what about the dosh we've just spent vaccinating every single one of the brats against HPV, to protect them even more? Are American girls getting the vaccine free? Or have the antivax lunatics turned that into a bogeyman?)

Rolfe.
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There does seem to be a fight against the vaccine. But mainly on moral or religious grounds, on the argument that it'll make teens more promiscuous, and have lots and lots of risk free sex.

Or that it will kill your little girl. Or something.
 
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