UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE JOKE
February 24, 9:30 amBefore anyone drinks the Dems kool-aid and signs up for the very long lines that are a direct result of universal health care... at least do some research on your own and quit believing the rhetoric that comes from the chief talking-head in Washington: Obama.
The Fraser Institute prepared a report to show the Canadian health-care system for what it is. I am going to include some pertinent information from that report. "In recent years, patients treated by the Canadian health care system have increasingly experienced lengthy waits to see providers." They went on to say... "Waiting times are the legacy of a medical system offering low expectations cloaked in lofty rhetoric."
Since the mid-1980s, the Vancouver-based think tank (The Fraser Institute) has produced an annual report on how long patients are required to wait for medical care in Canada. As a result of the group's research, treatment waiting times are now part of the public policy debate on the quality of the Canadian health care system.
In its 16th annual installment, the report titled "Waiting Your Turn" tracks how waiting times vary across Canadian provinces depending on the type of treatment needed. The report also documents waiting times for referral to specialists and the subsequent amount of time spent waiting for actual treatment from the specialist.
"Despite all of the promises made by Canada's provincial and federal governments, and despite the fact that Canadians are spending more on health care than ever before, the total wait time in Canada continues to hover near the 18-week mark as it has since 2003," co-author Nadeen Esmail said in an interview for this article. "Equally troubling is the reality that the total wait time in 2006 is 91 percent longer than it was in 1993."
These findings should give pause to proponents of universal coverage, who often cite Canada as an example of a country where health care costs less than care in the United States and everyone has free health care at the point of service.
"While many proclaim Canada's Medicare program to be one of the best in the world, or suggest it should be the model for reform in the United States," Esmail said, "the reality is that health spending in Canada outpaces that in most other developed nations that, like Canada, guarantee access to care regardless of ability to pay, and yet access to health care in this country lags that available in most of these other nations."
In 2006, the average amount of time spent waiting to receive treatment after referral by a general practitioner averaged 17.8 weeks across Canada. At 14.9 weeks, Ontario had the shortest waits. Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick had average waits of 25.8 weeks, 28.5 weeks, and 31.9 weeks, respectively.
Patients referred to a neurosurgeon waited an average of 21 weeks just to see a specialist. Getting treatment required an additional 10.7 weeks.
Patients waited an average of 16.2 weeks to see an orthopedic surgeon, and another 24.2 weeks for treatment to be performed after the initial visit.
The number of people routinely waiting for services is staggering, according to the report. In 2003, the most recent year for which data were available from Statistics Canada, approximately 1.1 million people had trouble accessing care on a timely basis.
About 201,000 had problems obtaining non-emergency services. An additional 607,000 had problems getting in to see a specialist, and about 301,000 patients experienced problems obtaining diagnostic procedures.
"So much for the myth of government-run health care being compassionate and fair," said David Gratzer, a Canadian doctor and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. "Canadians wait and wait and wait."
In Canada, waiting lists are considered a way of rationing medical care and holding down health care spending. Because health care in Canada is largely free at the point of service, demand is likely to exceed supply.
In a typical market system, the price would adjust to the point where the quantity of services provided is equal to the amount patients are willing to buy. But in a system devoid of a market mechanism, scarce resources are rationed through means other than price.
"The long waits for needed care in Canada show the danger of abandoning markets in favor of central planning," explained Sean Parnell, vice president of external relations at The Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based think tank. "Just as there were long lines for food and other basic necessities in the old Soviet Union because planners couldn't accurately match supply with demand, the politicians and bureaucrats who run health care in Canada can't provide enough health care to meet the citizens' needs."
VERY CAREFULLY READ WHAT FOLLOWS!!!
Gratzer agreed.
"It's like the old Soviet system," Gratzer said. "Everything is free, but nothing is readily available. Except that we're not talking about lining up for toilet paper in Russia in 1976, but queuing for surgery in Canada in 2006."
Economists generally agree such "non-price" rationing of resources is less efficient than a system that uses prices. One reason is that productivity is lost when people are unable to work due to treatment delays. Also, the risk of death while waiting is higher for serious conditions such as cardiac care.
Waiting lists are consequences of the way the Canadian health care system is structured, not a lack of money, critics say.
"The fact that this is the 16th annual report on wait lists for needed care should be enough to prove that the problem isn't a temporary one that can be fixed with just a little more money, as defenders of Canada's government-run system have claimed for years," Parnell said.
"Long waits and widespread denial of needed care are a permanent and necessary part of government-run systems," Parnell noted.
Keep in mind also that this is not just a single report I had to search for... Google "waiting time" for patients in countries where health care is provided by government and you will find that there are thousands of articles all saying the same thing... universal health care that takes your treatment out of your hands and places it in control of government is destined to fail!
I want to use my own personal experience to try and prove a point. I was having some health issues beyond the norm, so my family doctor sent me to a specialist. Keep in mind that in Canada and other countries there are weeks and months from the time you are referred to even see a specialist, and from that meeting to get certain tests such as MRI or Cat-scans can be more months. For an example... a needed heart bypass surgery can be ten weeks in Canada, from diagnosis to procedure. It is quite common in America to be diagnosed today with the need for bypass and having surgery the following day!
How many of you reading this blog right this very second know someone who has had this very thing done? They are diagnosed today with a problem and they are in surgery the day following? I bet several of you can name a friend right now who had this done. However, you do not know someone in Canada where that has happened. They are diagnosed today needing that procedure and in ten weeks... ten weeks they can get the surgery. Of course, that is if they live from diagnoses to the operating table?
Now, I want to tell you of my experience in trying to find the source of my bleeding... let me give you a list of what the five different specialists have done for me: keep in mind that from one specialist to another, and from one test to the next... was a time period of only six months! Remember, six months time and I saw all of these specialists and had all of these tests ran! If I were in Canada and needing these tests ran: I would have had to wait more than six months to be seen by a single specialist and have even a single test ran.
What follows is the list: endoscopy, (twice) involving two different specialists ... colonoscopy ... stress test on heart ... cat-scan from chest to pelvis ... cat-scan on sinuses ... four different sets of lung x-rays (over a three month period) ... bronchoscopy ... flexible laryngoscopy, (three separate times) and a rigid laryngoscopy. It is also important to know that every test ran and all procedures done involved a hospital and five of the procedures required sedation and an operating room. In other words... no noticeable waiting time for all of this to be done; regardless the procedure!
Also, in case someone reading this believes I was just fortunate to be in a certain state or hospital system: keep in mind the following facts. For all of these specialists and doctors that were used: I was seen in two different states and four different hospitals!
Now, some more facts about socialized medicine compared to our American system. I read facts where thousands of Canadians have come to America for heart surgery, needed medical tests, and routine care... etc. Then I wanted to see if the opposite was true: that is are Americans leaving here to seek medical care in Canada? I found out that... Yes... there are people who do that. Now, according to statistics compiled in Canada about this fact... let's see what Americans are looking for up north.
According to the Canadian government, Americans are crossing the border for prescription drugs, because they are cheaper and they are getting medical marijuana because it is legal there. I almost fell out of my chair from laughing so hard. Canadians leave their own country to come to America for lifesaving surgery and tests. Americans are going to Canada for illegal drugs! LOL!!!
In fact, I could not find even one, single, solitary case of any of the three hundred million Americans going north for surgery! Folks, there is a reason for that! Their government, the Russians, and ours all fail when they try to take on what is always better in the private sector.
Can any person out there show me any one thing our government has successfully ran when they took it over? it always goes into the red. Federal Express and UPS are in the black and successful because they are private enterprise. The USPS is always in the red! The American government run public school system fails miserably in the only thing they are supposed to do... educate young people. They fail at this and are always in the red! Private sector schools operate in the black and educate students far better. Social Security, Medicaid, and everything else in control of government fails... why would any rational person believe that universal health care would be any different?
The only thing the government does well... is the only thing the constitution charges it to do... protect its people from foreign enemies; we have a great and powerful military! Everything else should be taken from government control and put into the hands of private businesses! It's because when companies are forced to operate in the black, they will always provide a better service and they will always find a way to do it better than a government which manufactures its own paper currency!
You can always email me at clarkmatthews1@aol.com
posted by Robin Johnson @ 9:04 AM
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