It’s a pretty fair statement that Americans want change in the way health care is handled: just about every poll shows a majority or statistically significant minority are to some degree unhappy with cost, availability, or whatever.
So I was wondering:
If the Canadian health care system is so horrible, why aren’t Candians trying to change it?
A few quick Google searches at least implies to me that there are close to 0 Canadian organizations devoted to overturning it and replacing it with an American/corporate model.
Similarly the bulk of the criticisms of Canadian health care seem to come from Americans, who are not living on the Canadian border and do not regularly get health care in Canada. Oh, sure, they found more than one person who had a long wait or something; but please google “selection bias” if you’re not sure how that matters.
Since I am already on a modified socialist form of health care, private carrier/medicare plus Medicare part D for drugs, I must say that the payback is pretty grim. I do believe it’s Medicate that is sinking the budget but that could be augured up or down. I just had an operation that could cost me 20K for my portion so even with my coverage it ain’t cheap.
Now, I did some research on the Canadian system and finally come to the conclusion that it’s about 50/50 on the results. Which means to me you cannot please everyone no matter what you do. What really needs to be done in the US is stop have emergency rooms as peoples primary health care. If you have 100% health care then let them go to the “Doc in the Box” first and leave the hospital open for real emergencies. I guess something will be done, I just would hope, without hope, that some TORT reform would be part of the program. I am not holding my breath on that one.
Comment by bowtie88 — July 6, 2009 @ 11:20 am
Your google-fu is clearly better than mine. I have been able to find one meaningful document that is both statistically valid and 100% canadian, meaning it’s not a stealth position paper from some american think-tank. (there’s lots of those out there)
http://www.queensu.ca/cora/_files/PublicPerceptions.pdf
Amusingly their position is to spend *more* money on health care, although they do cite wait times as an area of concern. They also want private care available in addition to public.
In short their goal seems to be a guarantee of regular preventative care, which should thus lessen expensive emergency care for otherwise treatable conditions, and a framework for private care.
How horrible.
Comment by 21cdb — July 6, 2009 @ 12:11 pm
Sadly regular preventative care has never been proven to be of any real use. Allow me to try to explain as best I can. Years ago insurance companies tried it in an attempt to reduce cost in the long run. It made no difference. Now having said that, I get regular yearly checkup’s and cardiac checks per my regular doctor’s advice and my insurance pays for it. Of course it’s not guarantee of not having a heart attack but does tell me if there is a problem I need to address when the test are done. Then of course it’s up to me to address the problem. If I do, the tests are worth it, if I don’t they are not. So it’s up to each person and how they take care of their own health.
Perhaps I have misunderstood your reply.
Comment by bowtie88 — July 6, 2009 @ 2:38 pm
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/7/661?query=TOC shows that for some health care issues, preventative care gives you awesome bang-for-your-buck, and some suck (eg treatable-but-recurrent diseases). So that assertion is provably false in some cases.
It is also supposed to be taken as read that a regimen of regular preventative care does not mean aggressive treatment of every out-of-spec occurrence. Although I do know people who get MRI’d every time they cough, in part because their doctor can’t risk a lawsuit for failure to treat. This is probably related to tort reform, which you mentioned.
Comment by 21cdb — July 6, 2009 @ 3:39 pm