On Wed, 13 May 2009 14:29:04 -0500, "Upscale"
wrote:


"Cooniedog" wrote in message
I'm just curious about the health care systems in Canada & Great
Britain. They are currently running TV ads here in the States saying
that Canadians and Brits are refused certain health care or have months
and even years of delays before they receive treatments for some
illnesses.

I'll answer your question the best I can, but it's definitely not a
woodworking question. It's also a difficult question to answer. It's true,
that in some cases, there's an extremely large waiting list for treatment.
It's not an outright refusal of healthcare, just a fact that someone may
have to wait years for treatment. Some might argue that it's another way to
refuse help. Many Canadians who can afford it, choose to go to the USA and
pay for treatment they might have to wait years for in Canada. That part is
certainly true.

There are certain cases where some individuals have been denied healthcare
primarily on the basis that there's only so much money to go around and that
it's considered more prudent to direct funds where the greatest number of
individuals can be treated. A simple example of this (and many of these
cases are in the courts) is funding for special education for autistic
children. I believe the Ontario courts ruled that funding ends for those
children six years or older even though it's agreed that they'd still
benefit from this education. I'm not prepared to argue for or against the
morality of any of this.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/...m-ontario.html

Another example and something I consider to be health care is dentistry.
It's not covered by general healthcare anywhere that I'm aware of in Canada,
yet it's agreed that poor dental care can result in a host of diseases ~
diabetes for example. So, yes simple example would confirm that some types
of healthcare are not funded.

So, maybe the answer to your question is yes to both questions. But it's too
complicated question to answer outright. There's always going to be
exceptions to every argument and there's always a host of variables to
consider when answering it. Personally, I have a host of medical
difficulties. I'm not going to go into details, but for the problems I've
had and currently have, I feel I have a great deal of experience with the
Ontario healthcare system. Does that make me an expert? I wouldn't think so,
but for the average person walking around, I think my experiences eclipse
most of what the general public has experienced. Anyways, that's the way I
feel whether it's factually true or not.

From Manitoba that runs health care a shade differently than Ontario,
every sentence is more or less true. I'll add that for life
threatening issues you get bumped forward but not in front of someone
who is dieing faster than you. Unless you seem to be important like
a weasel politician and his family or a sports player: then you go to
front of the line and spare no expense. I have noticed that people
with money go to the US, Mexico, or Europe because for cash up front,
no one has to wait. And there are some procedues that have long
lists because of resource allocations. And there are some things not
covered because of extreme high costs. Getting bitten by a mountain
(north slope) jumping spider from Peru comes to mind ): My doctor
came up with that one.

Dental, eye glasses, hearing aids, and most drugs are not covered
unless your in prison or on welfare where most all of it is covered.
Lets face it - if you get sent to prison for life (8 yrs) we want you
healthy enuff to do the time.

I once asked a dermatologist why it took so long and cost so much. He
said the admin costs ran at about 85% and that doctors got the
remaining 15%. I assume the 85 included hospital costs and that he
wasn't slinging me a line.

If I sound a tad cynical over this it is because the system has
inequities. We hire nurses part time and burn them out working
double shifts. Somehow paying parttime overtime is cheaper that
paying benefits. We don't allow private services to open shop because
that would jeapardize publice health care and all the doctors would
flock over to the dark side. When a small community raises money for
an MRI machine we don't let it get hooked up because it wasn't
budgeted for, it's in the wrong community, and we want things
centralized. The list goes on.

Yes, there is a whole lot more to this and it gets complicated and
it's not nessessarily about how much money, but more like who gets to
touch the money first and dole it out.

Canadians want pay what the market will bear (if you can). Americans
want pay what's fair (if you can get it). Seems we both want what the
other has.

P