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[DSanner106 AT aol.com]

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