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To: Gabe Heti who wrote (93711)	2/23/2003 11:38:51 AM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 116752

I hope those operations were not life threatening merely because you had them in a Canadian government-run hospital. Canadian medical care is a prime example of where government arrogance is paramount. Once again government lawyers will tell you that they know more about medicine than the college of physicians. Perhaps there has to be openess in running professional associations, but so far the government has not presumed to tell engineers, steam fitters, and surveyors what standards they should have or how their work should be carried out. But medicine, hey! that is big money! 65% of the cost of running the Canadian medical system is administrationa. (read unnecessary government employees) The cost of your operations and hospital stay is the issue, not the quality, of which you will never know if you could not have got better in a private hospital. The facts are that private insurance costs no more, and private hospitals are markedly cheaper. Operations and diagnoses, either not allowed or well executed in Canada today, can be had in the states for a slight cash premium, and with the trip and stay, are still cheaper than comparable Canadian care, if it were available. The only place where Medicare in Canada is better, is where people cannot afford the insurance, or are for some reason not insured. Then the social system kicks in a bit better. But the problem not realized by the laymen is, in these cases the doctor often works for free, as the rate of refusal of card numbers approaches ten percent! Chasing the patient for card updates is pointless. The other sad fact is, as bad as the US system may be run, it is no substitute to freeze doctors rates and wages and make them into harried clinicians who must fudge their work in order to stay alive financially in a high priced, high liability environment. Few of us have to hire a nurse and recetionist, pay fees at hospitals, buy 100,000 worth of office equipment, 15,000 a year in insurance, pay back 50,000 in student loans and rent offices too, to stay employed. The the government pays 7.50 today for a routine blood test that takes 15 minutes of a doctor's time. A car mechanic would turn down those rates. For 8 years running from 1968 to 1975 they paid 60 dollars for an invasive prostectomy. The cost of one of the two doctors and nurse necessary in the theatre was more than that. You don't know how bad you got it with socialized medicine. Are private hospitals bad? Well in 1965 in Toronto I had an operation done by the perhaps best joint surgeon in the world, a fellow by the name of Symons. He had invented many back and knee operations that had improved the quality of many people's lives. He did a bang up job on me and I was mobile in a few days. A previously crippling condition was 100 percent alleviated. I stayed at their clinic, a private hospital, that cost me 150 dollars a day, paid by OHIP. The operation, I forget the cost, was quite reasonable. I was told the cost to stay at a ward in a government hospital was 3 times that, and the operation cost similarly more expensive. Symons ran that clinic with 15 other doctors and had no problems with patients for many years. Despite the success of such demonstrations, the government then banned private clinics as operations theatres/hospitals and mandated the triple-cost, often not available, public theatres and wards. Let's cripple health care and tell the professionals what to do. That was and is the message. How to apply therapy to this condition of travestum medicalorum governmentalorum boondogglae? It will be perhaps a long road, but unlike bank mergers, it will not be expensive to the client or the taxpayer. EC<:-}

To: Gabe Heti who wrote (93711)	2/23/2003 11:38:52 AM
From: long-gone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116752

Canadians Dissatisfied With Socialized Medicine American for-profit health care would come to Alberta, Canada, under a proposal from Premier Ralph Klein. To reduce waiting lists at hospitals, he would let the provincial government pay private clinics to perform surgery, such as hip replacements. The widely discussed plan points out the growing discontent with socialized medicine in Canada. A survey by Toronto-based Polara showed: On all income levels, 74 percent of Canadians support the idea of user fees for those who can afford them -- meaning they would be required to pay out of pocket part of the cost of their medical care. Of respondents making C$25,000 or less, 85 percent support user fees. And only 23 percent support increasing taxes on workers to keep the national health system afloat. Over the last 30 years, say critics, Canada's socialized health care system -- known as medicare -- has destroyed what was arguably the second-best health care system in the world, next to the U.S. Rationing of health care by waiting is becoming increasingly common, and there are shortages of hospital rooms and doctors. For instance, Ontario recently conceded it needs an additional 1,000 doctors, and according to the New York Times, 23 of Toronto's 25 hospitals had to turn away ambulances one day in January. Finally, an official at Vancouver General Hospital estimates that 20 percent of heart attack patients, who should be treated in 15 minutes, are waiting an hour or more for care. Source: Editorial, "Tired of Socialized Medicine," Investor's Business Daily, January 26, 2000. For more on Health Care ncpa.org ncpa.org