Re: Accountability in Canada a joke.

From: Larry Hoover (larryhoover_at_sympatico.ca)
Date: 08/29/04 

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 10:53:08 -0400

"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. Profit to the shareholders. That is built in, and takes precedence
over quality of care. If nothing else, in the American system, money talks.
No elected representative has the cojones to take the profit away from the
health lobby. They don't have a doctor supply problem. They just raise the
price until they can get doctors to abandon their home countries. Robert
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.

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.
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.

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

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Add Visa pages to US passport
    ... that 40 percent of Canadians now grade their health care system as a C or worse. ... the median waiting time from referral by a general ...
    (rec.travel.air)
  • Re: Accountability in Canada a joke.
    ... >> Understanding accountability in the Canadian health system. ... spoke of externalized costs of health care in e.g. Canada. ... Canadians are addressing health care funding. ...
    (sci.med.cardiology)
  • Re: Accountability in Canada a joke.
    ... >> Understanding accountability in the Canadian health system. ... spoke of externalized costs of health care in e.g. Canada. ... Canadians are addressing health care funding. ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)
  • Re: US Healthcare further destroyed by right wing extremism
    ... > health insurance if I wanted to visit any of my American friends. ... If you were an Inuit you would have no coverage in Canada but then again you ... don't really care about them as you only care about yourself. ... Canadians view it from a very different perspective. ...
    (sci.med)
  • Re: US Healthcare further destroyed by right wing extremism
    ... > health insurance if I wanted to visit any of my American friends. ... If you were an Inuit you would have no coverage in Canada but then again you ... don't really care about them as you only care about yourself. ... Canadians view it from a very different perspective. ...
    (sci.med.cardiology)
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