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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: fresc who wrote (160)	1/15/2005 8:46:36 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

>> This Article sums it up! No. The article sums up your point of view, and that of the author. It tells only one side of the story -- that side which SUPPORTS the single payor concept. It leaves out the part about inadequate facilities. Long lines. Huge delays. The fact that without US profit motive medical R&D here would suffer dramatically. One of my customers (I work exclusively with physicians) is a clinic of medical oncologists. Their new facility has a CT scanner -- something you won't find in Canadian clinics. If one of their patients needs a CT scan, they get it -- then and there. The physician has results before the patient leaves the office. Absolute efficiency. In Canada, such a CT scan could take months of waiting and difficult trips to facilities by a chemo-weakened patient. The patient may well die before the CT scan is made. Is this million dollar device a waste of money? Canadian healthcare proponents would undoubtedly claim it is. The cancer patients who benefit from it disagree. One other point. This same clinic has been my customer since 1992. During that time they have NEVER, EVER, NOT ONE TIME turned a patient away who couldn't afford treatment. Not ONCE. It is not unusual for them to eat the cost of TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars worth of chemo medication for a patient who is unable to pay. And they don't destroy their lives over it, either. They agree up front the treatment as well as the expensive drugs will be at no charge because the patient is unable to pay. The article doesn't "sum it up". It sums up a naive, distorted view of both the American and the Canadian system.