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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: Cogito who wrote (105884)3/11/2009 5:19:00 AM
From: Lane3  Read Replies (2) of 541832
 
My Canadian girlfriend reports that the long waits people talk about in the Canadian system do not apply to people with life threatening conditions.

It never occurred to me that they didn't treat emergencies as emergencies. If there's blood gushing, they're not going to queue you up for next Thursday. (Just like in the US they don't queue you up for next Thursday because you don't have insurance.) But there have been stories about people adversely affected by the shortage of scanning equipment, for example.

That's why the French system makes sense to me, since it covers everyone, but also allows people to pay for private care as well.

I think that the French system is the best of the lot, too.

Re equality, Tim posted recently that New York and Maryland have determined that retainer-type concierge medical service is insurance and subject to regulation as such. Washington has made the determination that it isn't.

Message 25474720

I've posted before that I have used concierge medical care in the past and that my current primary care physician was considering offering a retainer option. The notion that paying a retainer to acquire extra time from a doctor beyond what insurance covers is something that I and others might find worthwhile. It seems to me that the opposition to this is is based on the aversion that some people have to anyone getting better service than anyone else. I can relate to the feelings that one gets when someone connected is called to the head of a line. But turning those natural feelings into public policy don't make either good business or good public policy. Some people get valet service and sky boxes and other people get a bus ride and nose-bleed seats. The home team either wins or loses either way.

I have posted before about the apparently rescinded Medicare regulation that if a doctor accepted Medicare, it was illegal to make private arrangements with patients to supplement the Medicare payment amount. So I know there are forces for homogenized equality out there. How prominent they are, hard to say.

P.S. What did you think of the Supreme Court decision in Wyeth v. Levine?
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