Clueless. Can you read?

you twit, you just gloss the headlines, looking for some kind of context to cram your typical braindead swill into. Health care is hardly the government "on our backs" i think you are chocking on your borrowed ideology.

I think he got drummed out of Manitoba, Bummer.

I'm on a waiting list to see a plastic surgeon under medicare coverage. If the multitude of non-mediare plastic surgeons here could operate on me (in between boob jobs) without breaking the law, I could stop suffering.

F*ck medicare, just give us a medical care credit like the child care credit. We could then buy health insurance, manage things ourselves and eliminate a significant number of parasites.

Keep the doors open! This is a great idea!

I spend a fair bit of time (and actually lived, for a number of years) in America. I can tell you that if you are insured, health care is excellent. It is far better that Canadian services.

Doctors are there for the patient. It is almost like a service-based industry. It would cost me about $60 a month for full medical and dental. This would include everything. This would be ontop of medicare/medicaid taxes.

It is time we integrated these services with our existing services. To ensure that this degree of care is provided, but that the least fortunate in our society get quality care too.

Haha - I just went to their website....

WHERE DO I INVEST IN THIS BUSINESS!!

New Liberal medicare rules:
1) let the poor die.
2) let the rich live.

The public system is being sabotaged, both intentionally through funding cutbacks and unintentionally through the use of expensive new medical techniques which did not exist 20-30 years ago.

There is no way that waiting times will become shorter unless more medical professionals are hired. Do the math. I'm tired of the sophistry being used to say that people paying extra for their service will shorten the line ups of the people who can't afford to pay extra.

Any action that Stephen Harper takes in favour of the public system is suspect (just waiting to lull people into voting the Conservatives to a majority) given his history as the President of the NCC. The NCC came into existence in the 1960's to fight against medicare. Guess what? It was started by a wealthy life insurance executive, Colin Brown. Private medical care is not about better service - it's about making more money.

By the way, those of you in favour of taking doctors out of the system for private medical care should just get off of the medicare "welfare" wagon and pay for the total cost of care yourselves!

What nobody seems to mention is that the pressure put on the health care system is originating with the market capitalist wealth creation scheme, that destroys the environment, causes poisoning by pollution, incredible stress and whole strings of illnesses we've either never heard of before, or used to be a few percentage points, that have now become epidemics. Like cancers, and other manmade illnesses.

There were no waiting lists to speak of when Medicare started and for good many years after.
Now, with all the incredible expansion of knowledge, technology, drugs, equipment, infrastructure, etc. we have waiting lists, because the damage caused by the economic system breeds illness and destruction.

And please don't come back with the idiocy of expanded lifetimes. Look at the young people and children who are sick and dying.

Wealth can not be created only taken and costs can not be cut only transferred.

The waiting lists and the collapse of the system is caused by the reactions to so called wealth creation and transferred costs.

There ain't no "win-win" in economics, only "win-pay" and here's the payment.

Also, who gave the right to any professional sector to blackmail society into giving them unlimited wealth? I remember days when doctors made housecalls on bicycles, now no housecalls and million dollar estates are not enough ?

We may need medical doctors at times, but have switched to homeopathics years ago, away from the pillpushing that visibly crippled and killed many of our friends.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

My US sister and brother-in-law pay $2,000 per month (PER MONTH) for their mid quality health plan. When they get sick, the DON"T go and see their HMO. Instead, they go to a Pay Per Visit clinic. Why? Because their HMO tracks how often you use their services and they don't want to endanger their premiums. They will use the HMO if and when they are really sick or injured. The US has a great system. Can't wait for it to arrive in Canada. And if you can't afford $2,000 per month? Too bad.

You forgot their motto: Time cures all ills. I have a fifteen month wait to see an orthopedic surgeon and that's just to get in to see him not to fix my knee. Until then the taxpayer will continue to pay for me to live. Why is it that Copeman says it's easy to find doctors when the government claims it can't. Perhaps they lack the desire or it's just another part of their plan (across Canada) to make health care appear unsustainable in an effort to convince the public it must be privatized.

Jeffrey J.,

You're US Sister has clearly never had health-care in Canada. My personal experience is that the US system (when insured) is far superior. I call a bluff.

Secondly, 2,000/month - I have HEARD of that happening. That happens so incredibly rarely, but if that happened to your sister - that sucks.

The only time I have hear that happen is for COBRA insurance, or if the employer doesn't cover anything AND you have a large and very unhealthy family..

Remember that our Medicare isn't free, where do you think the money comes to pay for this ? The Govt. ? No, the Govt. doesn't have any money, they are managing our money, taxes.
If I pay $10,000.00 income tax as a single person, how much of that goes to Medicare ? It's at least half, $5,000.00. O could get a damn good insurance plan for that amount of money.
I think a Medical Bank Account system like Singapore would be something to look at.
And if you are poor ? You would still get basic coverage, just like the rest of real life.
And what's wrong with a pay per visit clinic for routine stuff that might only cost a couple of hundred dollars ? Saving your insurance for the big expenses. We are allowed to do this with our car, get it fixed up outside of ICBC so as not to affect our premiums.
Women have championed the argument that they have the right to be in control of their bodies. Why is it so strange for me to want the same right.
My dog has more options than I do.
It's time my charter rights were protected and the Supremes have already sung this song.
Regards

By charging patients before they can be on the clinic's roster, says health critic Cubberley, Copeman is essentially billing them for access to their doctor. That would be fine, except that the doctors in the clinic are also billing for much of what they do under the Medical Services Plan.

How is this going to save any money for the public system? It just sickens me that so many of these so-called private services use public money! Private schools do the same thing. Please, IMC and Capitalism, walk your talk, and start paying for your specialty services.

Maybelle/Capitalism: What you don't know would fill libraries:
I'll have to split this into two posts
From the New York Times:

By all statistics, many coming from the USA, like last week, comparing British and US health levels, they have the most expensive, per capita medical system on Earth and stand 29th in human health standards. Like $100, charged in their hospitals for an Aspirin.

Canada is much higher in health standards and tops the list as the "best country to live in", year after year. Must be our pinko, socialist system?

Realist..

As I wrote many times before, "costs can not be cut, only transferred". Yours is a prime example of how so called "cost cuts" increase and transfer costs. There are thousands of other examples of cost transfers across the whole economic spectrum.

The problem is that our economists are miseducated fools and our politicians are stupid to take their advice.

Ed Deak.

And here's the rest of it, if this doesn't convince you I have lots more:

In the end, the study's authors seem baffled by the poor health of even relatively well-off Americans. But let me suggest a couple of possible explanations.

One is that having health insurance doesn't ensure good health care. For example, a New York Times report on diabetes pointed out that insurance companies are generally unwilling to pay for care that might head off the disease, even though they are willing to pay for the extreme measures, like amputations, that become necessary when prevention fails. It's possible that Britain's National Health Service, in spite of its limited budget, actually provides better all-around medical care than our system because it takes a broader, longer-term view than private insurance companies.

The other possibility is that Americans work too hard and experience too much stress. Full-time American workers work, on average, about 46 weeks per year; full-time British, French and German workers work only 41 weeks a year. I've pointed out in the past that our workaholic economy is actually more destructive of the "family values" we claim to honor than the European economies in which regulations and union power have led to shorter working hours.

Maybe overwork, together with the stress of living in an economy with a minimal social safety net, damages our health as well as our families. These are just suggestions. What we know for sure is that although the American way of life may be, as Ari Fleischer famously proclaimed back in 2001, "a blessed one," there's something about that way of life that is seriously bad for our health.

Yeah, and lets then compare auto body shops under ICBC compared to those in Alabama. The arguments put forth by G West and Fiat Lux are stupid and endless.
Why has my body been hijacked by a monopoly.
We shouldn't put up with this no matter how many endless studies, debates and arguments waged against a so called American style medical care by socialists. My thought are blasphemy to most , I realize, but I am demanding my Charter rights. I am not interested in endless comparisons, I just want to be able to buy any car I want to. I want freedom like women.

Aw! Poor little ronny erwin wants to have the same freedoms that women do! Perhaps ronny you could take a pay cut that would accurately reflect what women make compared to men. Or perhaps the gov't could cut some of the essential services that us white men need much like services for women have been cut.

Give it a rest ronny! Would you rather have a government "monopolize" health care or a private monopoly that puts profits above all else? You see ronny, private health care does not operate under that same economic system as regular for-profit private enterprises. Health care IS a PUBLIC GOOD Even the most seasoned neo-classical economist will tell you that public good require government intervention - this concept of imperfect markets seems totally lost on you.

And you arguments (or lack thereof) are...

That's pretty much the kind of response you always resort to. Pardon me if I don't reply. I'll wait till someone with an actual idea posts one and then demolish it too. There are ways, I understand, for you start having the freedom of a woman - not sure medicare covers that procedure though.

The Supreme Court has determined that medical care provided my a monopoly Govt. system is unconstitutional. period, patients have rights. A seismic shift has occurred and I no longer have to listen to the same old arguments, over and over. I as a patient have beat you in court. If I don't get what I want from you, I will continue with lawsuits until I get what is my right to have. Quit playing games Mr. Govt. and mind your own business Mr. Cubberley.

Buying Cars? Auto body shops? How many of us cry when their car is "sick" and "dying"? How many would go bankrupt to save a car like families do in the USA? (Okay maybe some men might) You would have been better to stick with your dog metephor. You want "freedom of choice" for your body or to pay to have service feel free to hop the border the facilities there will be happy to take your money. Just be careful to read the fine print.

I AM Clueless
As usual, you don't know what you're talking about. You might want to actually read that Supreme Court case. I certainly doesn't affirm what you say it does.

Incredible:

I believe that the market works if I want to buy products such as tv's or a lawnmower. We have seen several examples of where the market does not work. The container trucker's dispute (it was not a strike, the truckers are independent business people bidding competitively for contracts with brokers) was an excellent example of a market not working well. In health care, there are and always will be shortages and there always will be rationing. In a well run ER, triage determines who is most in need and treats those first. In a socialized medical system the challenge is to control costs while providing high quality health for all in a triage like system. In a market based system, like in the US and the third world, rationing is simply based on ability to pay. The results, as earlier posts point to, have been repeatedly rejected in the past by Canadians as the health results are staggering and tragic. The US has the most expensive health care on earth both in terms of % of GDP (look it up on OECD website) and in absolute terms. Possibly because there is greater incomes than in third world countries (fair comparitors as all other first world countries have socialized medicine), cost is as high as consumers can bear. Outcomes? The basic agregate measures of health are far below those of Canada, Japan or any of the countries of western Europe. So, you can cross the border and see life expectancy decrease, infant mortality increase etc. (look up these figures for any Canadian province and neighbouring US state, they are consistent.) So what is the difference? I guess there might be something to socialized medicine afterall as the US, with greater GDP should have better health care if systems were the same. They do not. The difference is the presence of our gov't (taxpayer) paid system.

"Capitalism" : In what decade did you live in the US?

"You're US Sister has clearly never had health-care in Canada. My personal experience is that the US system (when insured) is far superior. I call a bluff.

Secondly, 2,000/month - I have HEARD of that happening. That happens so incredibly rarely, but if that happened to your sister - that sucks.

The only time I have hear that happen is for COBRA insurance, or if the employer doesn't cover anything AND you have a large and very unhealthy family.."

The $1000 per individual is exactly what I currently hear from colleagues in the US and then they choose which of the few HMO doctors they can see with limited coverage.

If I were to stand at a bus stop and demand payment for access to the bus, that would be termed extortion. Yet, charging people for preferential access to a publicly provided service is exactly what "Copeman" is doing.

Hopefully, our conservative oriented provincial and federal governments will start to act on this contravention of the Canada Health Act.

so now we can have rich people jump to the head of the line where they can join all the BC Fed members who scam thier way there via the WCB "supplementary" insurance system.

Meanwhile us poor schmucks wait six months for a CAT scan and the BC Fed rakes in the hundreds of millions of dollars in union dues from all the health care workers and public sector staff.

Talk about windfall profits.

Jeez logjam, you actually have any evidence to back up those claims?

Logjam 603
WHat you lay at the door of the BCfed is a consequence of the way worksafe BC (formerly the Workers Compensation Board) mismanages its business - all the while building up an enormous surplus in the fund. You might want to check that out...it's a consequence of the way an management friendly board has subverted its mission.

TROLL ALERT! Ignore Logjam. Just more union slagging from him.

The Canadian health-care system is clearly lacking and throwing more money at it might help a bit now that the Supreme Court has ruled that changes are allowed. The pre-occupation with many Canadians' vehement opposition to anything but the status-quo is expressed by citing the disastrous medical system that millions of United States citizens seem stuck with. Good US health-care is peerless, no US health-care is tragic. We should not hope for a US style system and we probably won't have one since all political parties realise that Canadians don't want it.

Canada frequently looks to Europe when formulating policy, hopefully it will again this time as the health-care system evolves. Recently, the Premier visited France and specifically their health-care system. There are no wait times for surgery in France and their system is less expensive than Canada's. In France one can also see as many doctors, or any specialist that one choses. It is two tier but seems to work well.

This site is for UK expats but has loads of information on the way things work in France:
http://www.frenchentree.com/fe-health/

US blogs are looking France too:
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2005/04/health_care_fra.html

thousands of operations are performed every year in private surgical hospitals in BC and paid for by WCB.
These people are not waiting in line, WCB argues its cheaper to have supplemenetal insurance to cover the procedures than have the workers off the job on WCB benefits.

So if supplenetal insurance is good enough for these workers, the vast majority of whom are BC fed members, why isn't supplemental insurance ok for the ordinary folks like us who aren't on the government gravytrain ??

Loggie from Alberta
Did you not read what was posted above? If the WCB wants to jump the queue, it should take the $300 mil in the kitty and send the urgent cases out of the province for the necessary treatment. But I'd rather it took the 300 million and used it in the medical system to shorten everyone's waiting time - but I'm not managing the Board – it’s an instrument of the government and the provinces EMPLOYERS - remember. The fact that some of the people getting WCB paid medical care are members of the BCFed is just another dead fish relative to the real question of what's wrong with health care in this province. Remember, union members are not the only ones covered by Worksafe BC. If you think supporting Copeman's scam is going to help - you have another think coming, imo.

can anyone explain how we can pump huge sums of money, year after year, more each year after year, into the system and ER's are falling apart and waiting lists get longer??

one view . . only 25 minutes of your time

http://onthefencefilms.com/video/deadmeat/

It's "loser-pay" in the garbage new-era!!
p.s.- speaking of mr copeland I wonder if he will be attending the gala dinner for john "thug, bug and chug" reynolds on May 25 at that fancy hotel in vancouver! (see todays vancouver sun for more details)
At only 4 thousand dollars a table why thats less than two patients yearly "membership fee" so really it's a bargain. Oh and to be sure at only four thousand, $4000, 4exp10superscript3 dollars a table don't get the wrong idea and think that any "lobbying" will be going on! John reynolds has assured us that he won't be a conduit for influence peddling just cuz he's still got his tonque in a certain someones ear. No the people at his fancy $4000 "appreciation" dinner will strictly be there to wish him well and by no means be seeking to gain access to a certain right-leaning, rich-favoring, rigged-game prime minister!!!
That would be just plain wrong!

p2s2-Dear Tyee
Please find out who attends this dinner incase malcom perry is told not write anything down. You know how rich people, or the creme de la creme as I like to call them for their miraculous ability to float on liquids, value their privacy!
Yes find out every name and then run a story on it the next day so we can all play connect the dots as new fun fascist policies start showing up shortly thereafter.
You know like fundamental changes to the health act or maybe massive new subsidies for the oil and gas sector or maybe the lifting of pesky off-shore oil moratorium!!
The possibilities are endless!!!

Emerson, like Harper, is a neoclassically brainwashed economist from the same university, so what can one expect from either ?

I have to laugh when I read these "free to choose" arguments. Free to choose is very nice when everybody is on the same footing and we're talking about individuals, or small businesses.

But free to choose doesn't exist under the bidding system, because the highest bidder takes all. This is what our present economic system is based on.

When it comes to large corporations, the "free to choose" becomes their free choice to skin people for everything they have. Just look at the daily rising food prices in the supermarkets and the stockmarkets based on legalized theft from the public to feed the daily growing, insatiable demands of their freeloader shareholders.

Some years ago I've read an article from a US health service providers magazine, gloating and planning for the huge profits when the Canadian "health care harmonization" takes place under the NAFTA, wiping out Medicare.

Once US service providers are allowed in, they can demand the dismantling of the whole present system under Chapter 11.

This is what this whole scheme is about. Once Canadian providers are permitted to set up shop, the US and others can not be kept out by NAFTA and WTO rules, under the "national treatment" rule.

The presently ongoing GATS negotiations, in secret, or course, are aimed directly at this, empowering multinationals to take over every service now under public control.

Ed Deak.

maybe we should quit eating junk food and start walking rather than driving everywhere. ride more bicycles too.

we're too busy arguing over who will pay rather than keeping healthy.

BLONDE PITBULL

you don't have the right to tell me to take my money and go to the US anymore. It used to be that all you smug Canadian socialists had to do was point to the border and say "go". ha ha ha ha ha.
Well, the shoes on the other foot now, I have the right to demand private insurance now, there's nothing you can do about it.
I am not asking for anyone to change their present arrangements, everything is still there for you and always will be, But I am sure happy that you smug people cannot simply tell me to piss off and crawl under a rock anymore. Canada is slowly changing and progressing finally. It's been a long time coming.

hey I have an idea!
why don't we meet up and see how effective your new health care set-up is.
Just tell me what bones to break and internal organs to rupture and then let the noble experiment run it's course.

JJ - another angry man rant. Hold on, Welfare Wednesday is only about a week away......

I'll take your money first old man!

Of course, you brave free traders have the right to demand anything, so are we, the majority, that usually decides in a democracy.

And the majority in Canada demands public health care. Even Harpo pays lip service to it, as he knows that the open advocacy of privatization would be political suicide for him. Now at least. So, he's waiting to get majority, when he can then "harmonize" with the US, in other words, sell out.

All the polls show that the majority of the people in the US are also, consistently, demand Canadian style health care, the last I heard was about 60+ %, but they don't get it, because of minority rule and their overall health care is at Third World levels. And they call this democracy they want to spread all over the globe.

Ed Deak.

Look up for US opinion on their and our healthcare systems:

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/health/healthwatch/Canada.html

IAMC, what's the matter- touch a nerve? That's not quite what the Quebec court had to say try again. I, honey, I am not only a Canadian I am an American. And unlike you little wannabees I know the average joe reality on healthcare. Socialist? That's an insult? From you, honey, that's a compliment.

Whether one goes and buys insurance (which most of us do, either publically or privately), I think the major issue here is the lack of trained Doctors, Nurses, and other medical professionals.

If we had sufficient Medical professionals, then the Hospitals could open up unused beds and cut the waiting lists for elective and unelective surgeries.

Year over year we are literally pouring money into the health system. Yet, for the past couple of decades, we see the same old problems.

Access to healthcare should be a normal function of the system. Yet we see more and more where people cannot find a GP.

Private clinics are fine, but perhaps such should be only for specialist healthcare.

I can not agree with the notion of subscription fees outside of the normal Provincial Medical Services Plans. That simply does not make any sense what so ever. All persons poor and rich should have equal access.

I read somewhere that the total Canadian Health budget is approx $53 billion, not including pharmaceuticals (that is a another discussion).

Howcome we can not raise the bar, effect more training programs for Medical professionals and get this thing fixed.

Copeman yes, but no subscription fees, and only referrals, paid by the public health care system.

Can someone please explain why anyone who is not a gullible moron should pay for this Copeman's profit margin to be seen by a "family physician" who apparently until now was doing "desk work"? And this Copeman's credentials are that he was a pre-med student? [partially edited for libel concerns. Tyee editor]

Just to correct Ed Deak - Canada ranks 30th in health standards according to the W.H.O.

And yet we spend nearly the most.

Second only to the U.S.

Where the heck does all that money go?

Yea, let us know when you find insurance Clueless.
Holland funds private and public systems.
The doctors must work in both and can only charge what the public system allows.
Wait times are identical . There are none .
No wait times. And a pretty healthy country .

Ooops! January 06' Holland switched to an insurance scheme .

I thought Ontario already gave this shyster the heave-ho .

Thanks for the correction Maxwell. I have no problem with somebody correcting me.

Could you please quote the exact website where the WHO lists the standings ?

Ed Deak.

IAMC:

Perhaps if you paid more attention here, you would notice that no one in governmemnt is advocating private healthcare where aninsurance company picks up the costs. Everyone in government is advocating a so-called "private" system in which the medical facility bills the government. So your $10 grand in taxes would reamin jut that......taxes. You think they would actually be lowered? Ha Ha Ha......

Maxwell:

Into private pockets?

If I am not mistaken, I think it was a W5 program that stated an American goes bankrupt every 30 seconds because of medical costs. That's a little over a million a year..........

Remember that the price becomes whatever "the market will bear", and for your health - you will bear quite a lot, and that is what a private system will end up charging you.

Privitizing medical systems doesn't magically create more money for health care. Is it going to come from that increasingly smaller part of the population with lots of money? Ha ha ha.

This post edited to remove personal attacks - Tyee editor

The only way to get the obesity problem under control is for people to get off their asses and walk or cycle more instead of taking SUVs and buses everywhere. It's completely insane that cars and buses are massively subsidized while people who walk or cycle are severely financially punished. For health reasons alone, we really need to offer pay-as-you-drive auto insurance, move road taxes off of property taxes and onto fuel taxes, change zoning bylaws and do everything we can to encourage walkable/bikeable neighborhood economies.

Those who most fiercely resist removing subsidies from cars and buses are the same people who claim to want a sustainable healthcare system and claim to hate Wal-Mart. If we stop subsidizing cars and buses, in addition to reversing exploding obesity rates and saving our healthcare system from bankruptcy, we will reverse the Wal-Martization of our economy while boosting small neighborhood businesses.

Some people seem to think we can just turn the clock back to the way it was in the 1960s in terms of health care funding and everything will be A-OK. But they're ignoring the fact that in the 1960s our medical system wasn't dealing with obesity, diabetes and all the other expensive-to-treat spin-off diseases caused by obesity.

[edited] The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and many other countries have figured out the connection between people sitting on their asses too much and exploding obesity rates. They've reacted by making it a lot easier, safer and more practical to walk or bike. We have to do the same. There's no other choice. Everything else amounts to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. [Edited]
[url="http://images.ctv.ca/archives/CTVNews/img2/20051007/160X_cp_strike_Support_0510.jpg"]http://images.ctv.ca/archives/CTVNews/img2/20051007/160X_cp_strike_Support_0510.jpg[/url]
[url="http://www.bcnu.org/student_nurse/debrawithstudents.jpg"]http://www.bcnu.org/student_nurse/debrawithstudents.jpg[/url]
[url="http://www.workingtv.com/images13/debra@160.gif"]http://www.workingtv.com/images13/debra@160.gif[/url]

Hear Hear!

An "asinine" example of a brilliant business plan from the John Les territory. (Note that diabetes is not mentioned once)

I can tell you for a fact that this Mayor and council doesn't give a fig about ALR land, nor does the former Mayor now Solicitor General, the prime farmland developer and architect of the "Street of Dreams" in the "Heartland of the Valley" - "Country living at it's best)....

(I'm sure he didn't do anything illegal).

http://www.chilliwacktimes.com/issues06/021106/news/021106nn6.html

http://chilliwacktimes.com/issues02/111102/news/111102nn2.html

February 5, 2006

With respect to the latest 9 acre Candyland Hotel "Sweet Theme" scheme being proposed on ALR land; (Hames - "the last thing we want to be is in the way of development of facilities like this")

That statement goes beyond the boundaries of stupid, haven't these people heard of type 2 diabetes? - "We're talking to the province about a venture capital corporation " ....

I can think of at least one MLA who
ought to be packing his bags - Go figure!

Sincerely

Hi! to Agent
Rushton

As both GWest and Fait serve to make clear I think, and many others here, it IS clear what causes Amerikkka's poor health performance over actual cost, and increasingly ours as the Neoconazis frog march us in the direction of theis "privatized" health model. It is called "capitalism".

It is the very system of capitalism itself and its underlying fear and greed driven dynamic.

And let's be clear about the so-called crisis in "public health care" we are currently experiencing-. it is the machinations of those political factions and ruling class groups who are themselves the most committed to this "capitalist health care model" who have themselves created the problem, deliberately I say, in order to facilitate the sleight of hand changeover to the US Empire model. It is only they, the Neocons (with some NDP help regrettably) who have held the levers of power over the system throughout its period of decline. It started with tax cuts to the wealthy, drawing away public funds from the entire social infrastructure of the previous "socialized capitalism" that had prevailed to the late 70s, one of which consequence was the cash starving/related to real maintenance need of the public health system. (And by, for example, extending the patent protection period to the big drug corporations, which prevents cheaper "generic" versions coming on the market sooner, which has produced a huge "cost hit" to peoples, especially the elderly's health care costs and the entire medical care system. Which was initiated federally, of course.)

From there, this undermining of the public health care system has spread like a self destroying cancer within the body society, by responding to the public funding crisis they had themselves created, (again, which blame must be shared in some part by NDP policy as well during this period ,) by allowing, tolerating and even facilitating as part of policy, the growth in "private health sector" clinics and other "for profit" solutions. Which in turn draws away health practitioners such as doctors, nurses and other staff from the public system, ever more into the high growth "for profit" privatized health care sector. All of which stage was clearly, from a review of the events and how it developed, quite deliberately set for the "for profit" actors to act out their roles as "solution providers.

The crisis "policy created" and the "solution" dynamic set in motion, the decline in the vitality and capabilities of the public health care sector "appears" to be self created, unresolvable, and the predictions of its decline against the "subsidized" for profit system self-fulfilling.

So outside of the manifold ways the excesses of current capitalism and its destruction of the natural and living environments of humans and all creation, and the burgeoning stressors of late capitalism social life are making people sick, pointed to by Fait Lux, it has itself quite deliberately and conciously destroyed the best guarantee of treating at least the effects of this "problem with capitalist economic and social life", the Public Health Care System.

Now our neocon commentator Capitalism above, along with his apologists for capitalism pals, may view all this as merely another "investment opportunity", but we can at least be excused as seeing it in quite another way; as a further demonstration that the progressive social development potential of capitalism has finally hit the wall, and is in need of a more radicalized, as opposed to traditional "politics as usual" response.

Our Neocon enemies are here of course, to crow in our faces.It ain't going to be easy, but we do need to continue to work and pick away at it, and struggle to secure the result of putting the great mass of people in motion. For it is the last laugh that indeed does have the best laugh.

Commit to it.

Yet another short anal excerpt from the coyote encyclopedia.

The other thing to note here of course, and I have seen studies, so I know they are other there to be found by perhaps one of our more enterprising researchers here, which show that the costs to health care have grown commensurate with the growth in "for profit" health care solutions in the previous "public" system. And within the rising cost added to public spending, for subsidizing the private system, this issue of the cost of drugs and other modern medications that results from having extended the monopoly patents of the big drug corporations has been tremendous. And other rises occur as a consequence of the growth in private ultra sound clinics, which everybody and his dog suddenly has to have with every pregnacy and hiccup-, and other private "high tech" solution clinics - and finally but not least, which becomes a huge part of the "cost structure" built into the "for profit" model of health care, is good old advertising, to get you to bother your doctor about this or that latest high cost medication or "break through". (May have side-effects producing dizziness, sexual dysfunction, liver failure and cancer of the bowel. Consult your doctor to see if Cynabrex (or whatever) is the solution for you and your suffering.)

All of which arises out of the "for profit" model and goes directly to the cost result of the "public system" that subsidizes it and its profits. Our ranking just ahead of the abyssmally placed US system is a reflection of the growing Amerikkkanization of all aspects of Canadian life, especially including in this context, our health care system.

Maybe so. But I'm not personally worried about American's.

Speaking about "anal", sourgasworks, you may want to take your head out of yours.

Dohhh!

Have a nice day. :-0

Bohica Coyote. Please send me a copy of your manuscripts and I'll take them to the toilet.

"American's" what, sourgasworks?

Now we are never going to get you out. You are completely incomprehensible.

I said blow, not suck. Now all that's left of you here in the real world is, the soles of your boots sticking out of your anus.

Please feel free to insult yourself all day long.

Coyote
It is interesting to see your reference above to the effect, from a cost point of view, upon our traditional health care system, that is being felt because of misused technologies.

One small illustration of this will have to suffice; because of privacy issues, I will use no names. Recently a patient, who has a minor and long-standing (although not at all anything about which to be concerned) pulmonary problem that his family physician has been monitoring for years asked his doctor to prescribe some additional, and quite expensive, diagnostic services.

The doctor, being familiar with the patient's medical condition, performed the usual tests and advised the patient in question that the additional procedures were unnecessary. Patient in question, at the urging of family members who read widely and investigate medical matters on the internet, decided to go to a private clinic in an American state that shall remain nameless - paying the bill out of his own rather capacious wallet.

The report of the private clinic, many of which in this particular state are not operated and supervised by Board Certified Radiologists, produced a result, which appeared to indicate some further problem requiring attention. Well-heeled patient, in a state of advanced anxiety, returns to Canada. Consults his doctor again and, in light of the evidence in hand, the doctor reluctantly orders a round of technically complex and expensive further tests. The results, of course, confirmed the family doctor's original diagnosis as well as the poor quality and professionalism of the private clinic.

Moreover, who will pay the bill? Not the individual - although he has wasted his own funds too, in fact the Canadian health care system will pay the bills for such often-unnecessary or redundant testing.

These kinds of things are happening repeatedly and will continue to force upward the costs of good universal health care in this country. For anyone wishing to explore the state of diagnostic accuracy in private medicine in the United States a quick perusal of the professional journal of the American Society of Radiology is a good place to start. As private clinics begin to offer their own version of ‘world class’ regular diagnostic services these kinds of situations will only increase in frequency.

Alberta has managed to reduce wait times to just eleven weeks for hip replacemt by judicious use of their doctors time .Proven fact it can be done with enough concentration of resources .

hannibal
Not to put too fine a point on it, although I've done no careful analysis of Alberta's costs, I do happen to know that Alberta offers absolutely top-dollar remuneration to the physicians in the province in at least some highly-technical specialist areas. I don't mean to quibble about the role of effective planning, which is also vital, but I wonder what the funding parameters are for such admirable results.

I do know that planning and reorganizing has also been used in a couple of Saskatoon general practice offices to reduce wait times for an appointment with a family doctor from several days or a week to less than a day.

Alcibiades,

Indeed, an interesting story and precisely the kind of thing of which I speak.

Just like in a purely privatized marketplace generally we are urged to produce ever newer products that serve the same essential purpose as the old, and to buy expensive things and toys that wind up seldom if ever used after the first few weeks or in our ballooning landfills, and the advertising to persist in this behaviour is relentless, and ever drains our personal pocketbooks, the same process is now already well underway to convince of new "must haves" in the ever increasingly privatized health care "marketplace."

All of which, as a manifestation of capitalism's built in need to be ever expanding and growing, creating new and hucking out the old into landfills, urged on by the relentless cost of advertising added to the cost of everything as well, in addition to the "hyper-needs" and competition going on in the marketplace, adds to the environmental debt we are exponentially accumulating as a "capitalist society". And it still never satisfies. but creates vacuums in society and its citizens that need ever new filling and reliance of "self medication" when that begins to fail. So as the health care system of the nation fails, so does our physical and mental health.

Everything winds up sacrificed on the Alter of The Sacred Capitalist Marketplace. Its needs over-ride all others.

Fuk 'em says I.

Alberta=oil. Their assumed "superior" system explained.

alberta= ignorant, fascist, greedy, rednecks!!

I am not sure what the answer to that is G.
I kow we are tragically short of orthopaedic surgeons and all specialists .
One end of the conundrum is that we train excellent doctors and then allow them to skip over the border .
I think that they should have to sign a twenty year contract ,stay in Canada, and we will educate them for free .Provided they sign the non-mobility clause .
We would still attract the best and brightest but not burden them with exorbitant student loans .
I know the neo's will really be pissed at this suggestion .

Sorry to have offended you Jester but I was born and raised in BC.
I live in Alberta because my wife inherited property here and it would be too expensive to move it to BC .
Generally I agree with your assesment though .
I get just as angry as asnyone at this Govenments(?) antics .

Gee Jester, how did you manage to get away?

hannibal
You're right about the specialist situation - I have some personal knowledge of this. I suspect many young doctors wouldn't be too upset with some kind of residency requirements in return for a little remission of some of the student loan indebtedness they have - (unless, and this is not uncommon, the student's family has been paying the freight).

A surprisingly large number of medical students come from medical families where money is not a big problem. You'd have a harder time getting a free-enterprise solution to keeping young doctors from that demographic around under those circumstances.

I don't understand why no free-enterprise geniuses around here are coming up with some nominally sensible ideas like that.

Thanks G. I try to be a little bit creative .
The cost for some students is prohibitive . This would allow students who were not born with a silver spoon to attend as well .
Say a community like Yak in the interior needed say 5,doctors for x number of years .
All they would have to do is pay for the 5, doctors to be educated and they would be guaranteed medical services for 20 years .
Long enough for the doctor to put down roots .
They would get their doctors as soon as they graduated and did their residency.
Not all doctors want to live in urban areas .
I know it is probably too simplistic to stand a chance .

I'm no friend of communism, having fought against it for 45 years, neither of Castro, with a long paper trail and scars to prove it.

But I would like to know, how an impoverished country, under trade embargo, like Cuba, can train all kinds of doctors and export them to other countries, like Venezuela, sitting on an oil fortune, if education is prohibitive?

I took some courses at Cambridge in the postwar years and have compared notes with a local, retired UBC professor who was also there in the early 50s and we reminisced that we hardly paid anything.

All education in Canada could be free, to the highest levels, if some of the stolen profits of the multinational carpetbaggers were taxed back. They would still have enough to take out of the country. And if they don't like it they're welcome to go to hell, together with their local pimps. They bring nothing to thsi country except theft, environmantal destruction and poverty. We have them all over the Cariboo, so we can see how they operate.

Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.

hannibal
That would be sensible - unfortunately, given the hairy nature of capitalistic thought, it would likely be seen as communism or something. I doubt we'd be able to convince them that paying the students to go to school was a good idea.

I think we could convince the dinosaurs that writing off the interest and principle on a student loan over, say a period of 4 or 5 years, while a doctor worked at some needed location would be okay. By leaving the option in new doctors' own hands and spreading the thing over a few years it wouldn't entail the kind of force or compulsion that neoconmen seem so upset by.

Let's say a new doctor owes $100,000 in student loans. He heads for Yak on an open-ended contract and stays for a minimum of one year. At the end of each year 1/5 th of his indebtedness (plus the interest) is paid by the Yak health region into the young doctor's student loan account. This could continue year by year as long as both parties are happy until the loan is discharged - at which time the doctor and the district are on their own. If the physician decides after year two to leave Yak he takes the unpaid balance of his loan with him and walks off into the sunset. Easy peasey. No socialism - just free market good sense.

Ed,
Don't want you to think that I disagree with your sentiments above, which you posted while I was writing and I didn't see until subsequently. I completely support free higher education.

I wish it were a realistic possibility.

One only needs to look at that bastion of academic excellence, Harvard, with its endowment of more than 23 billion dollars - earning, last year, some 23%, and wonder why the hell they are still charging any fees to their 5 or 6 thousand students.

Very sensible G .
Yes, it is a tragedy that higher education has become the bastion of the wealthy .
Harvard earns a ton of money from various patents as well .
I think they are,perhaps the best funded school in the world .
And yet one semester is in the neighborhood of $14,000 if I am not mistaken .

Seems to be a matter of the priorities we choose to adopt for the economy-, the needs of "the people" versus the needs of "the elites" and "the market". And I know Cuba has its problems with "elites" as well, but frankly, I suspect, they are in a situation where they have to pay more attention to the basic social needs of their populace.

Even if we are going to maintain capitalism ourselves, and I do not advocate for it, we need that particular "ruling class" as well in a position where it has to fear for our support. It's similar to why minority government is a good thing for the working class within capitalism, whatever goddamned party. It keeps them having to suckhole to us in order to stay in power, instead of having such a majority they can totally disregard us, and serve only their own "elite" class loyalty interests.

Which is a good thing, next best short of actually having a democratized economy, where the ownership and management system includes the various elements and interests of "the people", and a political system with greater and more varied class participation and ideas choices built into it. In my opinion.

From the Los Angeles Times

GOTTA LOVE THAT US HEALTH CARE/ NO WAITING LISTS/ TOP NOTCH TIMELY MEDICINE

Grumpy, you don't know how right you are:

Gordon Campbell's poodle, the minister of health George Abbott ("one of the best minds in the Liberal Government"), having attended a conference of health ministers on the threat of a flu pandemic, is going around closing hospital beds and slashing emergency wards.

I don't know if it ever occurred to him that the first thing we will need in the event of the long overdue pandemic is more... many more... doctors, beds, and expanded emergency wards, but he obviously is staying close to heal and not saying anything that will upset his lord and master.

I have to conclude that this vile and pernicious government is quite willing to dice with the lives of the citizens in pursuit of ideological purity, but I wonder, Do they know that their own supporters are just as likely to be stricken as those of the NDP? It would be poetic justice for there to be no beds for their own friends and families.

"Say, George, should we vote out all the yes-men?"

R. Smiley

My mistake, I hadn't realized the Tyee was going on to fix the entire world.

Ed Deak - Stats Canada report. It also reported that we were 14th in productivity and l8th in Ethics in Government. Two years ago report. Heard it on CBC about two months ago. Sorry I can`t be more explicit. Will pay more attention next time I hear a report.

sourgasworks,

That's okay, keep trying for some depth. We're used to you being wrong and shallow about almost everything.

Without the effort though, you will never amount to anything.

ADDs the problem?

Maxwell... so called productivity is a fraudulent figure. When a company fires more workers and replaces them with automation, raking in more profits from the stolen wages, it is called "improved productivity". What they don't say is that human labour doesn't cost anything to an economy. Remember, I wrote "economy" not "business", which is only a small part of real economies.

StatsCan reports, like unemployment, GDP, growth etc. figures are practically worthless. E.g. when they report 6% unemployment it could mean2-3 part time, minimum wage jobs for millions, and the real figure could easily be 15% or more. These figures are designed to mislead the public into an ideology based euphoria, as was done by the communists.

Big business on the move to "globalize" for easy theft:

There's a major conference planned for June 8-10 in St.John NB. "Atlantica: Business without bundaries" Quoting the plans, to: "Harmonize Federal and Provincial Regulations with the USA; Privatize public infrastructures and services; Integrate policy making with the USA; Expand NAFTA; Erase the Canadian-American border; Create one continental army and immigration policy; Build a highway from St. Stephen to Cornwall, etc"

In short: "Canada for sale, come and get it while the suckers still accept your worthless dollar!" Of course, the Irving family is in the forefront.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

Take a look at this site, http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/04/11/CanadasHealthCareCrisis/ got to keep the pressure up on gordo because he refused to give The Tyee an intrerview. so iamClueless, capitalisim, Realist, and a few others if you read this & then come back here & write your dribble.
I think you won't.
"Winter Olympics 2010" cost over runs that are being hidden but uncovered by the NDP.
$143,000,000 now that money would be enough to keep the 23% cut from very accredited hospital St Pauls

sorry it was Mount Saint Joseph Hospital getting the 23% axe there $143,000,000 now that money would be enough to keep the 23% cut from very accredited hospital St Pauls
http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/04/11/C...althCareCrisis/

Sign a petition against these undermining, sabatoging, privatetizing 4$$$ greed Our Public Healthcare System

http://stopercuts.bc.ndp.ca/

I read this and think ok Our Emergency room is now urgent care. Don't get hurt after 10:30P.M.or before 7:00 A.M or they will take you to Nanaimo to wait out the night in Emergency. We basically have no care beds in our so called hospital and next year when it gets down graded again it will be worse. Oh well we are only small towns who cares if it was the great smoke like Vancouver we get petitions. Ladysmith all we get is our Doctors Speaking out. Town council haven't heard a word of protest.

For as long as I can remember, the left has been telling me the sky is falling. So far, it hasn't.

But of course, the status quo is the only available solutuion for socialist-conservatives.

And as for that extream right wing BS "The Fraser Institute" probably paid for by the taxpayers

Working Man:

When it does, you will likely find some fault with those self-same "socialists" for it.

Working man:
Perhaps the sky has not yet fallen in your world, but I suggest that you volunteer at a homeless shelter or better yet an aids clinic and your actual experience will likely change your perspective. The number of disenfranchised people has been increased by geometric numbers and a graet many of these humans are their as a result of neocon ideologies. OPEN YOUR EYES MAN!!!!

Realist, there are plenty of reasons the poverty industry is thriving it is really up to the individual to make something of his/her life. Further, are you somehow suggesting that AIDS is a result of realigining social programmes to working people rather than idlers?

Further, Realist, we have this pesky thing called democracy. The left in North America has failed to keep up with changing times and loses clout on a daily basis. Perhaps if your side could actually present a realistic platform that would not wipe out the economic gains of so many you might actually form a government again.

In fact, socialist are the real "cons" as they are unable to change with the times.

And I might add, that $15,000,000,000 is being spent this year on "health" this province, the highest level ever. Where are those "cuts" or are "cuts" actually not getting as much as yu asked for?

The present system is bloated, beaurocratic and inefficient.

Just the way socialists like it. Status Quo.

Your insistance that every citizen is capable of making something out of his or her life reveals that you don't have a grasp of what life is like for most of these people. You have fallen into the neocon mistake that the civilised world must only have individuals who care only for themselves. This is why I suggest that you work at a shelter or an aids clinic (Poverty creates the exact conditions that produce drug addicts and homelessness that breeds the spread of aids). When you have lived a life of awarness of others beside yourself, you will then be quaified to make intelligent decisions and have actual valuable opinions. Unfortunately for you, your parents must not have taught you humanistic values as they pursued their own goals and greed. It not too late to learn try helping someone other than yourself and then you will grow as a person. Til then you have little to offer this world.

is csis coming after me?

Jester; you know as well as I that just because your paranoid does not mean that everyone isn't after you. Colbert suggested that they talk into their place markers to talk to the NSA. In Canada one needs only talk into their roll up the rim cup to talk to csis...

Working Man:

"The present system is bloated, beaurocratic and inefficient."

I don't know what part of you is working, but it isn't your brain. The elite who run this country (and whom you desire to emmulate by "working" your way up the ladder?) are intent on mainting the Status Quo. It's not your health but your money they are interested in. Why would they fix the system we have when they could make millions more destroying it?

Clearly, the issue is one of universality of essential services provided by the government and big businesses drive to end it, to either ensure or dissolve and control:

1) coverage and inclusivity.
2) cost affordability.
3) quality of service.
4) efficiency.

As current international statistics indicate, universality of essential services is more efficient as costs come down to provide services under universal systems that are properly integrated: healthcare, police, justice, cbc, wheatboard, penal systems, government administration, insurance, certain systems of transport, communications, and even some resource commodity sectors have all had their hand under crown corps and management. Unions can also be included, although some would argue against it, as an essential service along with daycare.

Perhaps the most telling feature of all is that essential services that are provided by "non profit" organizations focus on goals that aren't profit orientated.

Our universal "Canadian" systems have been far more inclusive, far more cost affordable and bang for your buck efficient than that of profit orientated essential services privately run by the U.S. One can sum it all up with one word. Greed. Greed is the problem with the privatization of essential services. It's coming from right wing groups such as the NCC, and now creeping into Federal politics led by former NCC president and western separatist (with the goal of balkanizing this country to join the states) Stephen Harper.

The media, controlled and owned by the rich elite and U.S. influence, is pro Conservative to meet this agenda. Clearly, many commentators have fallen victim to such ideology within our media. The only arguement Conservatives could argue (as they have no numbers to go by to support such arguements) as improving on what we have is with quality of service... for those that can afford it. Even then, often the best treatments for illnesses are those that are naturally provided for peanuts, along with the tremendous savings associated with prevention itself, the one thing that privatization of essential services will never provide.

Are we moving away from equality and human rights in favor of a system built on prestige and power to the rich at the expense of the average citizen, perhaps even the country we live in? Not without a fight.

Since I've posting on this sight, Coyote, Ed Deak, Lynn, G West and others, sum it up nicely. If you vote solely for your own self interests built on prestige and status, vote Conservative, and note that you risk devaluing your own wealth, nation and riches in terms of currency to do so in the long term. If you vote for what is best for the universe, the environment that sustains life, I.E. life itself, whats best for the nation and human rights, vote for someone else.

And one last thing. Talk of doing away with universality, especially in terms of effeciency, is moot. The most universal system we have today is our markets. Every trader knows it. North America is wide open to the largest auction mart of all... the stock market. Interac cards, integrated systems of business and banking, those righties out there so love to bash socialism and universality until they pick up a phone and buy a stock through their broker and draw some bills out of a machine. Nice smear. Puts it all into its proper perspective, doesn't it?

the brain
Nice final para. And very good points too. I'm totally against corporate welfare and universality for financiers and their imitators. Can we all urge the right wing to give up its dependence on the system as soon as possible? I'm tired of paying for the louts and so are the rest of the poor and the workers of the world.

Dear colleages

I wish for your opinion on a matter.
On May 25 at the Hotel Vancouver BC balllroom a "tribute" dinner is being held for former conservative MP john reynolds.
Tables at the dinner are apparently 5000$ and many have already been purchased.
My questions are who will be attending this dinner and is there more to it than simply tributing john reynolds?
Is there an unspoken reason for this event?
Please advise.

jj
All I can tell you is I won't be going!

Rather than just jabbering on and on about the US system that no rational person in the world would like to emulate, we should be looking at other systems. Canada's health system is ranked 30th in the world and the US is probably much worse. We should be looking at the countries in position 1 to 29, especially France, which is ranked first. The 100% public system we have is already cracking. If we don't want to fall into american style health care then we should allow a mix of private and public care. It would be easy enough to charge a clinic like Copeman's an annual "fee" that could be used to provide more public services, for just one example. There are many things that could be done. People on the left need to get their heads out of the sand and think of some new and creative solutions.

Realist, instead of dogma, give me some solutions.

Kuma:
Here's my creative solution. I think you've been buying into the ideology passed out by others with vested interests. Go back to The brain's post above and read it again. Once we start to dismantle our existing system, the for-profit clinics get the green light to finish it off. Our system can and does work if the proper resources and commitment are put towards it. The system has been starved for years on purpose, but isn't dead. It could get an instant transfusion, with some re-allocation of funds, away from yet more tax cuts for multi-nationals and their prophets who praise the god of globalization, and backroom deals to sell off every asset and natural resource to line the pockets of that tight group of elites in this country. Once those assets are gone, they can never be replaced. Wake up, please. We'll all be the poorer if people don't get off the talking points spoon fed to us by thieves. How are we going to explain to our children that we have nothing left because we gave it all away for the instant gratification of some corporation, that we weren't paying attention to what was happening around us, that we didn't say "Wait a minute!" How can a for-profit company compete with a universal system to our benefit? It can't. Shouldn't everyone profit by our shared success? How come the gap between the rich and poor is expanding beyond belief? Do you suck in your breath when you read about those salaries, perks, and pensions like I do? Why are some attaining such great wealth, while others are trying to jump on the gravy train at someone else's expense, and the vast majority and the poor are getting nothing but nickled and dimed into oblivion? Are these elites that much smarter than the rest of us, or just better connected? Why should I be content with little or no accountability? Why aren't the taxes we pay enough to cover our basic social infrastructure in this undisputably rich country, coveted for it's natural resources? Why can we not, as a country, level the playing field more? Why are both levels of government flush with cash we entrusted them with, while services are being cut? What is happening in our country???? It scares the heck out of me! Pay down our debts and share the expense of our starved infrastructure? - sure, take my money! But squander our future by keeping our heads in the sand - no way!

Nice post, OhmyGawd, couldn't have put it better myself.

interesting item on CBC... but of course one of the trolls can be expected to start raging about Monika...

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/05/16/clinton-health.html

R. Smiley

Sounds like Clinton's position is the same as mine.

Kuma:
I don't want to play tit for tat with you, or trample over your opinion or Clinton's. My point is, why are changes necessary at all? Don't you concede that the country is more prosperous now than ever before in history, and our future economic state is contingent on having our assets and resources in our own hands and not opened up to US interests and multi-national corporations? Why would we let the thin edge of the wedge alter our sovereignty under Trade Agreements, letting private interests tip the apple cart, when we can afford the system the electorate asked for. Why are we selling ourself off to other interests for no benefit to us. Who's calling the shots and spreading the rhetoric? Follow the money. What's in it for you?

I agree that Canada is more prosperous now than at any time in history. I also agree that we need to keep control of our assets and resoures, though most of them are already controlled by multinationals. We should have continued with the national energy policy. It was an excellent idea. Trade agreements can be good or bad depending on the details. The autopact was of great economic beneft to Canada. I have no interest in letting huge American health care corporations into Canada. As Clinton was saying in his speach they have created a huge disasterous mess in the US.

However health care costs are rising much faster than the inflation rate and with the aging population demand for expensive treatments will also increase. The supply is already not able to keep up with demand as is quite self evident. There is a certain amount of media hype, but it is not all just hype.
Allowing regulated private clinics and charging them a large fee would be one way to reduce crowding in public hospitals and raise revenues that could be used for public health services. We should be looking to progressive European countries for ways to improve services and reduce costs.

Kuma says " I also agree that we need to keep control of our assets and resourses, though most of them are already controlled by multinationals." What is your point? Do we change the Canada Health Act, a Canadian social safety net, which we are envied for, to allow competition for private interests, because...What the heck, they own everything else already?
Kuma says "I have no interest in letting huge American health care corporations into Canada." Well, maybe you don't have any interest in letting that happen, but as Fiat lux posted 6 hours ago, "Once US service providers are allowed in, they can demand the dismantling of the whole present system under Chapter 11." Let me know when you start to feel "had".
Kuma says "As Clinton was saying in his speech they have created a huge disasterous mess in the US." Reality check - this could be our future healthcare scenario if people don't think for themselves.
Kuma says "However health care costs are rising much faster than the inflation rate and with the aging population demand for expensive treatments will also increase." So, I guess it really is time to start making big business pay a bit more back in taxes, as a thank you for making their profits here in our pockets, or at least give up the subsidies to big business which taxpayers are on the hook for, to help cover our healthcare shortfalls. And on an individual basis, what would you be willing to pay for universal medical for all? Surely, paying some more is way less costly than if we went private as Clinton warns. Investing in our existing system to make it more cost efficient, just as the private interests would do, is also possible, no?
Kuma says "There is a certain amount of media hype, but it is not all hype." No, you are right. Only most of it is.
Kuma says "Allowing regulated private clinics and charging them a large fee would be one way to reduce crowding in public hospitals and raise revenues that could be used for public health services." How so? Would that not be self-defeating? Where are the physicians, surgeons, nurses, and tech's going to come from to operate these private clinics? They would obviously drain our hospitals of staff. Would not the over-crowding at the public hospital increase due to the shortages of trained professionals available in Canada? Private clinics are only going to offer cost efficient surgeries, where volume equals efficiences. They are not benevolent philanthropists. That leaves the less attractive, costly procedures to the public hospitals. That means private clinics would have low costs and the public system would sink under the weight of high cost procedures and shortages of funds. Depending on what your ailment is, rich or poor, you will have to pay for both. I suppose we could rent out all those unused publicly owned and funded operating rooms and wards to big business as subsidized office space to bring in a little cash.
Kuma says "We should be looking to progressive European countries for ways to improve services and reduce costs." Good point, but do we do the research and not use the good sense to apply it to our problems in the existing system? What ever cost savings a private interest could provide, we could install into our system as well, with out giving them a piece of the pie.

OHMYGAWD,ohmygawd, well said.

Great write OMG
All profits for Private health care would, I suspect go in the barking dogs (share holders) bank accounts. I'm a shareholder of Vanity & my shares help my bank!
Is there any web sites that lists individual share holders of these private 4 profit Oinks?
I'll bet the same names are on all lists!
Kuma wake up, public health care sys has always been under attack by, bought or more to the point Dirty Politicians! Why is Gordo in so much of a hurry to bring in p4p

The people of BC spoke-up finally "And People Power" is much stronger & more powerful than a bunch of money grabers!
Let's keep the pressure on Gordo's boyz!
This going to be a very hot summer for the Gordos & the Harpos!
If the 2010 is going to throw people out on the street and take away money from social programs and dirty back room hidden overcosts now approching 180,000,000. over the Libs promise of "Not a Dime Over $600,000,000." When gordo gives a promise be "Vewy Wewy" and carry a big you know lol

B C Dude:
People Power indeed! No matter what your political views, under which "label" you see yourself, whether it be right, left, or somewhere in between, when did it become acceptable for political parties of any stripe to exempt us from the process? When did they become comfortable seeing us as gullible, feeding us mistruths when deemed necessary, making decisions for us in their best interests, dealing in secrecy, making promises just to get elected and then not acting on them, using the puppet media to spread their distorted messages ad nauseum until we ae supposed to start believing it, shuffling the players like a shell game to serve their own ends? We citizens still think we have a strong democratic voice! Ya, right! If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. When did we say to run our governments like big business until the voters' bottom line is irrelevent? Who's to say my MP won't cross the floor one minute after being elected because he's connected to the "Skimming from the Public Trough Club"? When are people going to give up the misleading party labels and say "We've got your number, and no friggin' way are you going to run things for anyone else but the citizens!"

Such socialist dogma and lack of any constructive input outside such dogmatic parameters is the exact reason you people do not win elections.

But then again, if you could change, then it wouldn't be dogma anymore, would it?

Preaching to the choir is not terribly effective. A careful study of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the UK might be useful. But that would challenge the status quo, wouldn't it?

Ohmygawd
You are on a roll. And to think 6 weeks ago you were nervous about posting at all. I think I'll take a holiday!

Alcibiades:
Just thought I'd use a slow time to practice, is all. Don't you be going anywhere - I'm off shift now and back in my hole.

All you guys do is rant and rave about ideology while the health care ship is sinking. There are huge problems with our health care system and just blaming everything on the right wing idiots WHO I DESPISE AS WELL is not going to solve the problem. Most european countries have a mix of public and private health care delivery systems with a variety of insurance options as well. If you guys don't get your heads out of the sand we're going to end up with an American style system by default. The average person is getting more and more fed up with huge wait times, lack of family doctors and clogged emergency rooms. Things are going to change in the next 10 years whether you like it or not. Rahter than being dogmatic idiots you should try and think of some solutions to the problems. The status quo is NOT working.

Kuma:
I am sorry you took offence to the rants, but I am having a hard time with your solutions. It's obvious to me that we need to get to the nub of the problem. We need to fix the situation, of that there is no doubt. My feeling is that our politicians are leading us away from "Canadian" values without consultation. To me, the current system is inclusive, and the proposed "fixes" are about which additional policies each of us will have to purchase, over and above basic coverage, in the future. It's my "call to arms", my desperate scream in the wilderness, just like yours. I, unlike you, believe we are being led by the nose down the same path as our American cousins. Business is Business, in a dog eat dog world. I want no part of it.
My hope is that the two of us, debating the best way forward, will spark some minds. Now, can we be allies in a solution? Let's work it out, citizen to citizen, disregarding labels and political spin. I propose we solve our own healthcare problems with traditional Canadian values. This is what the majority of us told the Commission, from sea to sea to sea. Please give me your reasons why we cannot do it and must import add-on coverage from various European countries. Medicare was our concept in the first place, right? If you see no dangerous moves in adopting the systems elsewhere, and think I'm full of hot air, give it a whirl and give me a taste of my own medicine, this time with answers and not dogma. ;-)

Well said Ohmygawd, yes we have to take our concerns to the people on the street.
Campbell wanted to shut down "The Georgia Straight" Why?
Because he has no control over its contents & he's scared of the truth. Unlike Canwest's BS rags, I haven't bought a Sun, Province, or watched Globull TV, for gosh I don't remember. How did the Van Suns polls put gordo @ 57% of voters think he is doing a good job? Already the BS is wrong.
So I think we already have a great media outlet and we should be using it, and it's free!

Health care does not fit the market model. Doctors who have opened for-profit clinics are primarily interested in making money. Notice the type of service provided. Has any of these private for-profit providers opened a clinic that provides comprehensive, universal health care to any patient base on need and not the pocket book.
Health care services at times will be very costly. It is not geared to making a profit unless providers cherry pick certain services that can be processed quickly in a given time period so as to maximize profit. Illness that require long-time care and expensive treatment will not be considered by private for-profit business orientated doctors. Because if for-profit business orientated doctors were truthful they would be advocating their services to everyone by providing full health care services regardless of ability to pay. This will not happen because money-orientated profit-seeking doctors are only interested in making a profit. Public health care consequently must look after the sick they don't and therefore the public health care system subsidizes the private providers - not the reverse.