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LOL, "every canadian you've talked to", are not the ones who die waiting. You never got to talk to them.
Well I minister in a retirement town, not once has someone complained of waits, or being denied treatment. You need the treatment/surgery... whatever, you get it.
I ended up in the ER the other week, my wait was less than 10 minutes.
Need a Dr. app't, no problem if you aren't in the same day, then the next.
All this in a community that is defined as having a physician shortage.
Having experienced both the U.S. and Canadian systems, I will take the Canadian one hands down every time. I have not once met someone who wants the U.S. system up here, and that includes people I care for in hospitals, care facilities and hospice's.
I too have a Canadian friend who is/was conservative to the core. He got hurt on the job and broke his anckle. He ended up waiting so long for surgery that the bone healed wrong and they had to rebreak it to fix it. then he was off work for a very long time and he needed PT (he called it physio or some such) and had to wait. that set him back and he was off work for even longer. I think it was about a year before he could go back to work.
He raved about how awsome his healthcare was because none of that cost him anything and he got disablity the whole time he was off work.
I sat down here south of the border wondering how anyone could be happy with such an outcome over something that might have left an American on the sidelines for 6 weeks. (likely 3 or 4 weeks really)
but hey, the difference i suppose is we Americans pay for healthcare and Canadians dont have that financial worry. he will limp for the rest of his life, but he doesnt have a big bill to pay so there ya go...
I'll relate what I know of the Canadian system.
My Aunt a resident there, needed her gall bladder removed. While the operation and post op care cost her only $5 Canadian dollars out of pocket, she endured 18 months of chronic, debilitating pain waiting for her surgery date. Missed work and wages as a result too.
Also, a family friend (non-smoker) diagnosed with lung cancer, did not outlast her waiting period for surgery. While I do not know if surgery would have prolonged her life, I do know that her physician prescribed her with (Oh, this must've been borrowed right from GB's NHS care handbook) WARM COMPRESSES in the interim.
Despite her father begging her to come back to the states for proper treament, she is dead.
Any idealistic policy / practice has some kind of fallout at the expense of some other benefit. Rather than duplicate a concept with all of it's faults, we need to come up with a better plan...
I too have a Canadian friend who is/was conservative to the core. He got hurt on the job and broke his anckle. He ended up waiting so long for surgery that the bone healed wrong and they had to rebreak it to fix it. then he was off work for a very long time and he needed PT (he called it physio or some such) and had to wait. that set him back and he was off work for even longer. I think it was about a year before he could go back to work.
He raved about how awsome his healthcare was because none of that cost him anything and he got disablity the whole time he was off work.
I sat down here south of the border wondering how anyone could be happy with such an outcome over something that might have left an American on the sidelines for 6 weeks. (likely 3 or 4 weeks really)
but hey, the difference i suppose is we Americans pay for healthcare and Canadians dont have that financial worry. he will limp for the rest of his life, but he doesnt have a big bill to pay so there ya go...
I too have a Canadian friend who is/was conservative to the core. He got hurt
on the job and broke his anckle. He ended up waiting so long for surgery that
the bone healed wrong
I have a friend who slipped on the ice and broke her ankle. She had surgery the next day.
My Aunt a resident there, needed her gall bladder removed. While the operation and post op care cost her only $5 Canadian dollars out of pocket, she endured 18 months of chronic, debilitating pain waiting for her surgery date. Missed work and wages as a result too.
Also, a family friend (non-smoker) diagnosed with lung cancer, did not outlast her waiting period for surgery. While I do not know if surgery would have prolonged her life, I do know that her physician prescribed her with (Oh, this must've been borrowed right from GB's NHS care handbook) WARM COMPRESSES in the interim.
Despite her father begging her to come back to the states for proper treament, she is dead.
Any idealistic policy / practice has some kind of fallout at the expense of some other benefit. Rather than duplicate a concept with all of it's faults, we need to come up with a better plan...
Well I minister in a retirement town, not once has someone complained of waits, or being denied treatment. You need the treatment/surgery... whatever, you get it.
I ended up in the ER the other week, my wait was less than 10 minutes.
Need a Dr. app't, no problem if you aren't in the same day, then the next.
All this in a community that is defined as having a physician shortage.
Having experienced both the U.S. and Canadian systems, I will take the Canadian one hands down every time. I have not once met someone who wants the U.S. system up here, and that includes people I care for in hospitals, care facilities and hospice's.
I'm a nurse who has worked in both Canada and the US. I'll also take the Canadian one hands down. I don't know of anyone who would go back to the old system. Any hint of dismantling our system would result in riots that would make the Storming of the Bastille look like a yoga class.
I'm assuming you're only referring to the bold type and you're certainly entitled to state that you don't believe me.
Given that there are gaps in the Canadien system, in your opinion, where does it fall down and where can it stand to be improved?
I don't believe that any doctor worth his salt would prescribe warm compresses for lung cancer.
It's absurd.
There are some wait times for ELECTIVE surgeries. Those can be improved upon. Also, the brain drain to the US has to be reigned in. The taxpayers heavily subsidize doctors' educations, only to have them turn tail and run to the US, where they make more money and don't have to worry about paying back student loans. Why should I pay to have a medical student get his/her degree for next to nothing, but then not stay in the country serving the folks who paid for it? If they're going to leave the country, then we should get our money back, and have them pay the full price of their degrees, totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars. We can use the money for our hospitals and other medical services.
Well I minister in a retirement town, not once has someone complained of waits, or being denied treatment. You need the treatment/surgery... whatever, you get it.
I ended up in the ER the other week, my wait was less than 10 minutes.
Need a Dr. app't, no problem if you aren't in the same day, then the next.
All this in a community that is defined as having a physician shortage.
Having experienced both the U.S. and Canadian systems, I will take the Canadian one hands down every time. I have not once met someone who wants the U.S. system up here, and that includes people I care for in hospitals, care facilities and hospice's.
The single largest failure of large organizations is the failure to properly distribute and allocate assets and resources. The larger it gets, the worse it gets.
I will happily say "I am glad your town is doing well", because I wish nothing bad to happen to anyone.
I will also say that shortages of EVERYTHING have occurred. No matter HOW they try to adjust and re-adjust, it simply moves the shortages from one place to another, one area of operations to another. Free markets respond to demand. Government responds to lobbyists and the skill of report-writers within it. Free markets work, government does not.
I don't either. A very close friend had lung cancer, her treatment started within 48 hours of diagnosis. My cousin had esophageal cancer, she was to begin treatment within 24 hours but had them delay it a day when she found out the treatment would impair her ability to eat certain foods... she wanted the day to gorge on them. And she did.
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And she did. 
