Right on yldstrk!
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Our Enemies Within
Bureaucrats - Federal, State & Local
Posted on 06/25/2008 5:44:52 PM PDT by Kaslin
As this presidential campaign continues, the candidates' comments about health care will continue to include stories of their own experiences and anecdotes of people across the country: the uninsured woman in Ohio, the diabetic in Detroit, the overworked doctor in Orlando, to name a few.
But no one will mention Claude Castonguay — perhaps not surprising because this statesman isn't an American and hasn't held office in over three decades.
Castonguay's evolving view of Canadian health care, however, should weigh heavily on how the candidates think about the issue in this country.
Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay's work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.
Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."
"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."
Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Yeah, government ain’t too good at running stuff. Except military operations.
i never did understand why we should admire and emulate the canadian system
when the canadians with cancer were down here for surgeries!
Our health care system suffers from the same problem the Canadian system suffers from, just on a lesser scale. The problem is not enough doctors because the policy makers have not focused on producing enough doctors, but on managing demand so that it looks like there are enough doctors even though a vast quantity of demand goes unfulfilled.
bump
Thanks for posting. BTTT!
You’re welcome
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Just have a look also to the Health Care System in France and UK.
In France it is going worth and worth with a huge deficit and big taxes for the working people and low incomes for doctors.It’s a socialist system.
It’s different in UK and it is improving because there are 2 systems(public AND private)
Right on yldstrk!
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Our Enemies Within
Bureaucrats - Federal, State & Local
"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services...and there it is...
I have to give credit to this guy: he is not without a sense of realism. A pure ideologue (like Mao) would continue forever, guided only by his preconceptions. At least this fellow is learning by experience.
What would have been best, of course, is if he had known some basic economics and a smidgen of history in the first place, and then with only a very little imagination he could have foreseen the problems he was creating.
Ping to #10!
A democrat victory will turn US into Canada! A Republican victory will too, only without the militant medicine!!!
Consequently a lot of Brits choose to use the NHS for repeat prescriptions and routine doctor visits and long term ongoing heath issues. A fair few though for minor or initial diagnose go for a private consultation to get quick diagnostic and then get the doctor to put them back into the NHS for treatment. Doctor because seen him private manages to queue jump and you are often seen treated under the NHS within days instead of weeks if serious or if not life threatening or that serious 2 or 3 weeks instead of several months.
Good point. I think I agree. Furthermore, on reflection, contracting with ‘preferred’ doctor groups would further limit the number of doctors participating in the govt. ‘privatization’ program by a huge number of the available shrinking pool (over age 55 doctors have huge incentives to drop out of service) being excluded..in effect, severe rationing, which, conceivably could be a worse problem than the shortage existing now, might be the majority effect. A doctor, desiring a solo practice, ‘to offer a unique service’ may have the door 100% shut.
You must understand that all these socialist initiative were at the vanguard that was initiated in the 60’s. Quebecers regard medicare as a sacred cow offering a non-american solution because deep down inside they care for their fellow man much more than their american counterparts. So the prevailing wisdom goes. All this is rubbish of course but liberalism is soo seeped in the very fabric of our being that coming to the realization that the system doesn’t work will not register. There is a deep denial of this and thus on we go with a broken system, more people dying and living a miserable existence in pain and suffering only to hold up the belief that we are better off with a broken system than no system at all.
Sadly the majority of Quebecers and canadians in general somehow feel that a private system is inhuman and more people will be left at the curb if the private system would be adopted. And that sadly is what socialism is all about. Lowering the standards so all are f’en miserable. Beware of the likes of Obama who come bearing gifts that will be paid dearly with your own money!
No, no! You just need to raise taxes and making complaining about the healthcare system illegal!
The hospitals in Canada are decent as far as the services rendered. It's a question of how long does it take to get services. Yet the hospitals on the Canadian border in Massena NY, and Malone, and Plattsburgh are full of cars that have Canadian plates.
When I first started servicing Massena Hospital, it was a Podunk hospital with 30 year old x-ray equipment and MRI and CT came in on trailers for a few days per week. Within the last two years they are sporting completely new radiology wing and new equipment. MRI is done in house and CT is new multi-slice done in-house. Same for Malone.
Canadians pay in cash at the time of service. No better customers in the world.
The problem for Canada is the folks who live in places like Val’d Or, Quebec, Wabush, Laborador. Miles from nowhere, relatively low population and few jobs beyond logging and trucking. They have problems with healthcare. Not those who live in cities. The further north you go the worse it gets. I don't know how to fix their problem. It's not the same set of circumstances as here in the US. What may be necessary for rural Canada is not th e same as what is required for rural America.
What is clear is that the hospitals on the border have profited and gotten much better via the poor timeliness performance of their counterparts just over the bridge.
btt
ping
I generally agree with the ideas expressed by Dr. Gratzer in this article, so I’d like it if he got all the details right. Quebec was neither the most populous nor the most affluent province of Canada in the 1960s, Ontario was. It’s precisely the lack of affluence in Quebec which has strained its health system so badly, to the point that the reforms promoted by Claude Castonguay get perhaps a better hearing there than they do in some other provinces.
History shows they're not even good at that. Just no one else out there to defend or fight or fund except governments. Oh you get mercenaries, which don't do too badly..
Every war I read about is full of government screw ups....
“Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies In Ruins, Its Architect Admits.”
What’s with this “We” crap? WE? Who’s WE?
Hilarious. And this dinosaur bureaucracy is what the Dhims want to inflict on America. It's a sign of the insanity of our times that the most intellectually backassward people run around calling themselves "progressive."
thanks for an intelligent reply.
Nationalized health care is just what this country needs to completely slide into Marxist serfdom.
A democrat victory will turn the US into a worse disaster then Canada
Yes our friends to the north come over get health care and pay cash. The bandits to our south come over illegally, walk into the emergency room and cannot be denied service, and then walk out a few days later good as new, and not having paid a dime. It’s called work ethic and responsibility. I know their government is pathetic and urges them to cross over illegally. This is why we need a big wall to the south and basically nothing to the north.
That is also constitutional. If I can recall no State can declare war against another country, but a country’s government can. The constitution said nothing about the government being a wet nurse for everybody on this planet, it didn’t even detail a Social Project system. Not just that but you don’t see somebody walking around giving people private militaries or armies.
The Federal Government is at least half decent with Military Operations, and a few other National Requirements(Post Offices for example) because it doesn’t have the same kind of scope that social projects envision. Social Projects and Nanny State Regulations are, on the other hand, better and at least half decent when they are in private charities or self-policing units(meaning people who regulate their own behavior or private sector groups and not some bureaucrats).
Personally, I think that everything would be better if even our military was completely privatized but that is a pipe dream in need of reality at the moment.
We can all see what nationalized healthcare has done for British dentistry.
You hit the nail on the head. I spoke to a surgeon from Montreal who explained to me that the rationing of health care has forced surgeons, in particular, to leave the country to work elsewhere because they were losing their skills.He told me that he is now limited to one operating room one half of one day per week. He can’t take on new patients because he can’t get enough time in the operating room. I asked him why he hasn’t left for greener pastures and his response was that he is paid very well contrary to the popular belief. The occupancy rate for Montreal operating rooms is less than 60% during the week and only 25% on the weekends.
around here it's more like 95% weekdays and sometimes it's "No Room at the Inn"...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The longest wait is for an MRI test. While the provincial average is 109 days, patients wanting the procedure done at a hospital within the Champlain LHIN are waiting an average of 249 days. At the Ottawa Hospital, the number of days skyrockets to 359 -- 331 days beyond the provincial target of 28 days.
When Mrs. Springman needed her MRI, the Docs told us on the Thursday after X-Mas, Friday the HMO paperwork was pushed thur. She had it on Monday, New Years Eve.
I'd rather have to deal with an insurance company, than the Government.
Our problem has more to do with lawyers taking 70 cents out of every healthcare dollar leading to bureaucratic insurance rules.
We should follow the example of Texas and implement tort reform. Their healthcare costs went down by double digits.
You’ve got that right.
It would be 359 days for me.
:-(
We’ll trade you oil for health care. Isn’t free trade great?
Anyone in the US notice that the only other countries in the world that have a health care systems like Canada’s are Cuba and North Korea! That ought to send off alarm bells.
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