Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Canadian Health Care

Have a painful hip problem in Canada? Wait over a year for surgery after waiting nine months to see the specialist that recommended surgery? Unwilling to suffer that long a period, Christina Woodkey from Calgary, drove across the border to Montana and had the surgery done in two days.

"What we have in Canada is access to a government, state-mandated wait list, said Bryan Day, a former Canadian Medical Assn. director who now runs a private surgical center in Vancouver. "You cannot force a citizen in a free democratic society to simply wait for health-care and outlaw their ability to extricate themselves from a wait list." (Source WSJ "Escape to Montana", 9/30/09.

And, no, Ronald Presley from Peoria who recently wrote a LTE in the JS saying "Profit is root of medical evils". No profits? Then its all government socialism. Doesn't work and never has for long. However, Mr. Presley is correct in what he says about greedy tort malpractice attorneys, fair arbitration for real damages and a better method of weeding out incompetent medical practitioners.

Incompetence is hard to weed out in all walks of life. Hard to determine what makes up incompetence and saying I'm sorry won't alone handle the incompetence of individuals, the private and public sectors. Incompetence occurs every second someplace. Most of us are incompetent from time to time. Incompetence of one type or another is a major reason we have 43,000 vehicular deaths and over a million vehicular injuries every year in the the United States. Redress for proven grievances; yes, but the tort system in most of the U.S., especially in Illinois; is ridiculous.

So is part of the Obama health plan; ridiculous. We've taken this long to come up with a better health plan so let's do it right. One thousand pages of health care language that most of Congress hasn't read? Get real, you bureaucrats.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My dad had severe hip pain for years, went to many specialists, and was finally diagnosed as having very little cartiledge remaining in his hips. He needed hip replacement surgeries. The first one went fine, the second one resulted in a massive staph infection which required the hip replacement to be removed, a spacer put in, and in a few weeks he will have to have another new hip put in...this has been going on for over 3 years...we are lucky to have it so good here.

My brother-in-law is from Canada and his elderly mother still lives there and she raves about her healthcare. I think it is so arrogant of the US to think that our way is so much better.

Merle Widmer said...

I take it your dad is from the U.S. and he had a staph infection. Staph infections are seemingly becoming more frequent. Blame is often placed on the fact that bacteria are becoming more treatment resistant. True, but improper and sometimes sloppy care and procedures are probably most often the cause.

That our system in the U.S. is superior to all other systems is probaby incorrect. Most of us do not want a Canadian System but to borrow parts of health care systems and incoporate those that seem to work in our revamping of our system. Who pays for it is part of the problem and not solved by Obamacare.

Most of us are looking for less expensive care, part of which would be accomplished by limiting tort lawsuits and reducng doctors insurance.

As for those with no insurance who use costly emergency services as their family physician and pay nothing. Needs reworked. Offering unlimited care like this to all, many of them abusing the system, emphasizes the need for more health care education, many who won't accept it even if if is for free.

Surveys shows that almost as many people die in the U.S. from overdoses of drugs as are killed on the highways. Not to mention the ones whose lifestyle is contrary to the norm and will need medical services that could have been avoided, all their lives.

Chronic obesity fits in there somewhere.

I repeat what I'm not ashamed to repeat what I said to a good Catholic Sister one time when I was raising funds for the homeless, "you are not going to save them all even if you devote your whole life to save them all, your time would be better spent with those who indicate a true desire to change their life-style or can be saved."

I have never said our health care systems in the U.S. can't be greatly improved.

Equal care for all including some of the above and illegals granted amnesty with the cost burden shifted to to those who can susposedly afford it?

No.

Anonymous said...

right on, merle