Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Re: Obama-Care: This Is What It Will Be Like

Bill,
   You have already made up your mind. Stick a label on it such as "socialized medicine" and then stigmatize it.  We know we pay for it in our taxes, but given a choice, 90% of Canadians voted in favour of it, but asked for improvements.  Waiting times are the biggest problem and triage is the best way of handling it right now.  Triage is where you go in, get a short interview, get prioritized and then told to wait to see a nurse who will then decide whether you go to the head of the line or wait.
   The system is this. Health care is a provincial responsibility.  The federal government has said it will fund part of the cost across Canada provided the system is universal.  Funny that this guy (who is he?) chose to go to Quebec to do his review.  Quebec is a poorer province and so is behind in some circumstances.  Consequently, a family chose to sue the Quebec government over having to wait and won when the Supreme Court of Quebec ruled that long wait times are a denial of health services.  So they have been ordered to improve their wait times.
    Ontario recognized the problem several years ago and made changes to improve wait times. Personally I am healthy at 70 years of age but I can tell you that when family members (my wife had cancer and her mother has Rhematoid arthritis) have gone to a clinic or the Emergency, they have never had to wait the times that were quoted in this program.  A week ago, we had to wait 10 minutes to see the triage clerk, approx 15-2- mins to see the triage nurse and then 1 hour before seeing a doctor, This is because it was after hours and our family doctor was not available. Niagara Falls, Ontario (85000 population) has 4 walk-in clinics which are available at most times in the day until 9:00pm and one of them is always open on Saturday and Sunday. So you have a greater choice than just the ER. That guy in the video may have just gone a clinic which was closed that Sunday.  I will say that we get a lot of tourists in Niagara Falls so maybe we are better off than some other town, but there has also been no complaints published of the Americans who have gone there for treatments - we see reports often of accidents involving tourists.  We were in Florida in 1982 when my wife sprained her ankle on a Saturday so off to the ER. It took 3 hours to see a doctor.
    On the other hand, we also see horror stories of people in the states who have had no access whatsoever to health care.  We had a problem here with US citizens acquiring or forging Canadian health cards, but the Ontario government has controlled that better now.  You never hear of anybody losing their business up here because of  astronomical medical bills, as I have heard in the states.  I have a cousin in Florida and my wife has a cousin in Maryland whose son is a doctor (they come up at least once a year).  So our system is not perfect but neither is yours, but the US has the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world and that says a lot more than you or I can.  A lot of this is anecdotal but it is quite representative of the state of health care of both countries as there happens to be a lot of discussion of this subject; more so now that it is a topic in the US. 
   How is that for an ad hominem arguement?
Gary


Bill Polhemus wrote:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/scrowder/2009/07/13/must-see-undercover-expose-of-socialized-healthcare/

Watch the whole thing. Leftists, I'm sure you have lots of rebuttal -
but mostly I just expect ad hominem.


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