HILLARY ‘08! (NOT)
The next time someone spouts off about a National Health Care plan, refer them to this article by Mark Steyn: (HT: Polipundit)
As [Canada’s] chief justice, Beverley McLachlin, put it, “Access to a waiting list is not access to health care†— and in Canada you wait for everything. North of the 49th parallel, we accept that if you get something mildly semi-serious it drags on while you wait to be seen, wait to be diagnosed, wait to be treated. Meanwhile, you’re working under par, and I doubt any economic impact accrued thereby is factored into those global health-care-as-a-proportion-of-GDP tables. The default mode of any government system is to “control health-care costs†by providing less health care. Once it becomes natural to wait six months for an MRI, it’s not difficult to persuade you that it’s natural to wait ten months, or fifteen. Acceptance of the initial concept of “waiting†is what matters.
True, they’ve not yet reached the stage of a ten-month waiting list for the maternity ward, but consider the experience of Debrah Cornthwaite, who last year gave birth to twin boys at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. That’s in Alberta. Mrs. Cornthwaite had begun the big day by going to her local maternity ward at Langley Memorial Hospital. That’s in British Columbia.
They told her, yes, your contractions are coming every four minutes, but sorry, we don’t have any beds. And, after they’d checked with the bed-availability helpline “BC Bedline,†they brought her the further good news that there was not a hospital anywhere in the province in which she could deliver her babies. There followed seven hours of red tape and paperwork. Then, late in the evening, she was driven to the airport and put on a chartered twin-prop to Edmonton. In the course of the flight, the contractions increased to every two-and-a-half minutes — and most Lamaze classes don’t teach timing your breathing to the turbulence over the Rockies.
Would you want to do that on your delivery day? You pack your bag and head to your local hospital in Oakland, and they say not to worry, we’ve got a bed for you in Denver.
This waiting phenomena is true for every single country that “enjoys” government financed health care. It’s the way government keeps costs down. By rationing health care, the government can determine where and when and who as it relates to your health.
Helluva deal, eh?
A couple of anecdotes cannot communicate much about the entire Canadian health care system. I wouldn’t believe that a couple of anecdotes about prompt and effective medical care in Canada, which are surely available, would prove the system works and neither would you. How about looking up some facts? What is the average length of wait, and the maximum and minimum length of wait for routine care and for emergency care? What is the documented level of consumer satisfaction with the system? How does the overall system effectiveness compare with other developed nations?
You also do not comment on how the U.S. rations health care. I suspect that our massive numbers of uninsured, huge deductibles, ever increasing consumer health insurance costs, refusal to cover those with preexisting conditions and fewer and fewer companies participating in health insurance coverage for employees or lowering their levels of contribution are also forms of rationing that do not lead to positive outcomes for tens of millions of Americans.
Perhaps Canada’s model would not work for America. Our for profit system of health care is providing marvelous specialty care for some, but continually less and less overall care for fewer and fewer people. These trajectories cannot continue indefinitely without intersecting at a point of system collapse. If universal health care coverage is not the solution, what is?
Comment by docG — 6/20/2005 @ 1:55 pm
“massive numbers of uninsured”. What do you suppose the reasons for that might be? When I was in college, and 25 years old, I had to choose between medical coverage (which I never used) and beer. I chose beer, as would most 25 year olds.
The only way to get ‘full coverage for all’ would be to give it away*, but even if you did that many people would ask, “medical coverage is nice, but can I cash it in and use it to pay my rent?”
I contend that ‘full coverage for all’ means covering those for whom medical coverage is a priority as well as those for whom it is not. Rationally, if medical coverage is not a priority for an individual, then why are we attempting to force it on them?
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*when I say ‘give it away’, I mean steal from the working class and give to the poor.
Comment by Some_Yahoo — 6/20/2005 @ 4:47 pm