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  • From: DSanner106 AT aol.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] The future of eldercare in the US
  • Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2009 09:27:53 EDT

I agree that most of the hype is overblown on the differences between
Canadian and American health care, but where the article is pointing out the
advantages of the canadian system, it is very one sided. The author is a
relatively well known left wing writer on the ill's of America. She also
wrote a
piece and spoke on TV about the racism of Bill Cosby when he gave his
speech about the black population needing to start taking responsibility for
their actions etc etc.

_http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7250958?source=rss_
(http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7250958?source=rss)

I remember watching her on TV and the conversation devolved very quickly to
the name calling, and the racism charges flew. Many of her points I do
agree with, but you still have to fully evaluate the questions.

It is not a perfect system, but it has its merits. For people like my
55-year-old Aunt Betty, who has been waiting for 14 months for
knee-replacement surgery due to a long history of arthritis, it is the
superior system.
Her $35,000-plus surgery is finally scheduled for next month. She has been
in
pain, and her quality of life has been compromised. However, there is a
light at the end of the tunnel. Aunt Betty — who lives on a fixed income and
could never afford private health insurance, much less the cost of the
surgery and requisite follow-up care — will soon sport a new, high-tech
knee.
Waiting 14 months for the procedure is easy when the alternative is living
in
pain for the rest of your life.

As an example, this would be a benefit to 15 percent of our population,
and a detriment to the 85 percent currently insured who would also suffer 14
months waiting for surgery rather than the 4 week average to schedule such
surgery in the US now.


Moreover, fewer Canadians (11.3 percent) than Americans (14.4 percent)
admit unmet health care needs.


If 15 percent of Americans are not covered by our system, the the number of
14.4 percent admitting unmet health care needs is logical but why, if
Canada has no uninsured people, are nearly as many reporting unmet health
care
needs. This seems like a problem to me with the system.


Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.
The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More
than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to
paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer
system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It
is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care
and who doesn't when everybody is covered.
This I do like, we do have extreme waste in this area. We have to consider
though that this is the area of spending that supports the private medical
research industry. If we remove the profit motivation, why will companies
spend what they do to find new medications and treatments? Still an area
where trimming is in order.


While overall taxes in Canada are slightly higher than in the US and
Defense is a fraction of the spending there, Canada's govt. funded health
care
system provides 1 MRI unit to 8 in the US per capita, with ratios of 1 to 3
open heart surgeries and cardiac caths. 1 to 8 radiation therapy units, and
1 to 6 lithotripsy centers, all per capita. When govt. is given the
control, they are fine with allowing their citizens to wait 14 months in
pain for
surgery to save a few bucks.

_http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/8/3/178.pdf_
(http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/8/3/178.pdf)

If we truly spend 31 cents on the dollar on Bureaucracy to Canada's on
cent you would think the govt. would spend the difference on making care more

available rather than pocketing it. Again, when left to their own devices,
govt. generally does not look out for it's citizen.


In a message dated 8/8/2009 7:43:48 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
Clansgian AT wmconnect.com writes:

http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_12523427





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