Re: Accountability in Canada a joke.

From: Robert (RobertJ_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 08/29/04 

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 12:18:21 -0700

"Larry Hoover" <larryhoover@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:j5mYc.123$7i2.52288@news20.bellglobal.com...
>
> "Lictor" <ghostmlNOSPAM-REMOVE@online.fr> wrote in message
> news:4131cf68$0$324$79c14f64@nan-newsreader-05.noos.net...
> > "Robert" <RobertJ@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:10j2tdvg73osb29@corp.supernews.com...
> >> Healthc Manage Forum. 2004 Summer;17(2):9-15, 48-55. Related Articles,
> >> Links
> >>
> >> Understanding accountability in the Canadian health system.
> >
> > The American public system has no
> > accountability problems, because noone asks it to be accountable for
> > anything... No wonder it performs so badly...
>
> I almost agreed with you, totally. There is an accountability in the U.S.
> system.

There is no US system unless you mean Medicare or VA. There are multiple
options and not one solitary system.

Profit to the shareholders. That is built in, and takes precedence
> over quality of care. If nothing else, in the American system, money
talks.

So public systems are more efficient? Government is efficient? They can't
even screen people to see who is eligble. Talk about fraud in the public
system.
> No elected representative has the cojones to take the profit away from the
> health lobby.

The same elected representatives you want running the public program. They
don't have the cojones to take on the private companies so where does that
leave the governent health program then?

 They don't have a doctor supply problem. They just raise the
> price until they can get doctors to abandon their home countries. Robert

So when people say it's only a one single payer program, it's BS. They also
screw the healtcare workers who are suppose to run the thing. Screw them and
then complain about accountability.
That is precisely why the system is doomed.
> spoke of externalized costs of health care in e.g. Canada. Yes, we train
> more doctors than we retain. But that's not an inevitable outcome. It's
only
> because the U.S. has raised the price of doctors. You need an externality
to
> apply the concept of externalized costs, Robert.

All I hear about is how cheap the canadian system is and all they do is hide
the true cost. A private company can not do that but big government sure
can.
>
> Yes, Canada has problems with timely access to care. Elective surgeries
have
> long waiting lists. I don't see how it serves the populace to have people
> "on hold", as they cannot be fully productive and contribute to the
general
> welfare of the society as a whole, while they're waiting for treatment.

A realization that canadians and healthcare workers have seen but that is
not recorded as lost income or put within the price tag of healthcare.

> Canadians are addressing health care funding. Our elected representatives
> are at least trying to improve the system, and in a way that benefits all
> Canadians. Health ought not to depend on wealth.

It does and that is another myth being put out there that people with wealth
are actually going to wait. Get real. Do you think people with wealth in the
states are going to wait if we adopt a similar system? I don't care where
you live as wealth does impact health. You mean to tell me somebody who can
not eat is as healthy and one who can simply because he can make an
appointment at no cost? Talk about government propaganda and you buy that
stuff. Where did you get the idea that poverty is eliminated by providing
them with a doctor?

>
> If Canadians agreed to raise their contributions (directly, as e.g. user
> fees, but preferably indirectly as taxes) to the percentage of GDP that
> Americans are forced to pay, I can virtually guarantee a higher quality of
> care than is available even in the United States. Without guaranteed
profit
> (or if you prefer, call it "return on investment") siphoning off the cream
> of the cash flow, and without the strangling inefficiency of
administrative
> bureaucracy inherent in the U.S. system of "managed" health care,
virtually
> all of the resources would flow to those in need. No uninsured citizens,
no
> untreated or poorly treated people marginalized by cruel fate. Nobody
being
> denied care because it's not covered under their insurance. Nobody going
> bankrupt to save their own life.
>
> Lar
>
>

I quoted a Canadian health minister saying exactly that. Canadians are going
bankrupt right now according to him. They don't provide out of hospital
drugs and long term elderly home care.