No Country for Sick Men

[RedEarth]

To judge the content of a nation’s character, look no further than its health-care system.
By T. R. Reid
NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 12, 2009

“Us Canadians, we’re kind of understated by nature,” Marcus Davies told me in his soft-spoken way. “We don’t go around chanting ‘We’re No. 1!’ But you know, there are two areas where we feel superior to the U.S.: hockey and health care.”

Davies is an official of the Saskatchewan Medical Society, so it’s not surprising that he would want to extol Canadian medicine. But that feeling of patriotic pride in the nation’s health-care system is something that just about all Canadians share. They love to point out that Canada provides coverage for everybody, usually with no copay and no deductible—while the U.S. leaves tens of millions of its citizens uninsured. They love to remind us that, while the U.S. lets some 700,000 people go bankrupt due to medical bills each year, the number of medical bankruptcies in Canada is precisely zero.

Yet I wasn’t inclined to let Davies go unchallenged. I agreed that Canada does an admirable job of providing free and prompt care to anybody with an acute medical condition. But for nonemergency cases, the system often provides nothing but a long wait. Last summer I tried to get an appointment with an orthopedist in Canada to treat my aching right shoulder; the waiting time, just for an initial consultation, was 10 months. How could you be proud of that?

“You’re right,” Davies said frankly. “We keep people waiting, to limit costs. But you have to understand something basic about Canadians. Canadians don’t mind waiting for elective care all that much, so long as the rich Canadian and the poor Canadian have to wait about the same amount of time.”

In that last sentence, Davies set forth the national ethic of health care in his country: medicine is not a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder, but a right that must be distributed equitably to one and all. In short, the Canadians have built a health-care system that neatly fits the Canadian character: ferociously egalitarian, but thrifty at the same time.

I found that same pattern—a health-care system that reflects a nation’s basic cultural values—everywhere I went when I traveled the world for a PBS documentary and a book about how other wealthy countries provide health care. “The fundamental truth about health care in every country,” notes Princeton professor Uwe Reinhardt, one of the world’s preeminent health-care economists, “is that national values, national character, determine how each system works.”

more......

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/september/no_country_for_sick_.php

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Anyone who says there is no wait here in the US to see a specialist is lying thru their teeth.

I personally know people who have had to wait anywhere from 3 to 6 months to get their first appointment with a neurologist, and one with a orthopedist.

Considering the cost here...one would think that all appointments would be immediate.

I have to wait three months to see my ob-gyn.

Universal, Single Payer is the only answer...Screw the insurance companies.
We got along without them before we met them, and we can get along without them now.

[The River]

5. It All Depends

on where you live. Population density and the ratio of
doctors to patients is a big reason for waiting times.
Even with my crappy insurance I've never had to wait more
than a few days even for non critical surgery. A recent cancer
was diagnosed and removed within a 4 day period.

I know there are real problems with doctor availability (in certain areas) and cost
(everywhere) but saying anyone who normally gets excellent care are liars
is a huge generalization.

-1

[Demobrat]

2. If you don't have insurance there's no wait.

Because you won't get in at all, ever. The first question they will ask you is what kind of insurance you have and if you have none, guess what? They're not taking new patients.

[liberalhistorian]

3. Ain't that the truth! And the GOP always seems to

conveniently forget that little fact, probably because most of them have never been without either insurance or money. A former doctor of mine would go batshit crazy trying to find specialists for his patients who didn't have insurance; it made him nuts that he often couldn't find specialists for patients who desperately needed them. He kept at it 'cause it was important to him that they got the care they needed, but it angered and frustrated the hell out of him. Appealing to their "better nature" and the fact that the person badly needed the care usually didn't do much good, as the bottom line and profits were what the specialists had their eye on. Not all of them, of course, but most of them. He would have patients who would finally get in to see a specialist, after months of him trying to find one that would accept the uninsured patient, only to find that it was too late, the condition was too far gone and the prognosis wouldn't be good. Then the specialist would get mad that the patient hadn't come sooner, when if he'd seen the uninsured patient sooner in the first fucking place it wouldn't have been an issue. THAT was what would really drive my doctor nuts.

[stuball111]

6. True.

They say that in a Canadian style system, you can't see any doctor? that's bullshit. I can walk into any clinic, any hospital, any where and see whomever I want! (I'm from there, but live in the US now) Here, I can only see the docs that are in my "plan" unless I want to pay out-of-pocket to see someone else! And even then, they might not see me because I don't have their coverage, and they'd wanna see the money up front!

[Demobrat]

7. I had a 90-day window where I was uninsured

due to changing jobs. I didn't bother to get anything to cover the gap because I'm generally very healthy and what can happen in three months, right? But in that 3 months my back went out. I had never had back pain or problems before and had no idea what to do. Nobody would see me. EVERY doctor I called asked about insurance and then told me to get lost. One even told me that since I didn't have insurance I should just ignore it until it went away. Then I got insurance and everything changed. They couldn't wait to get me in and start charging the insurance company for every x-ray and test they could dream up.

[stuball111]

4. He tried to get an appointment in Canada?

Of course, if he's not Canadian, and not in the system, he'd have to wait much longer than a Canadian! If he is indeed an American, this is misleading, if he is Canadian,and on the system there, then he's lying. Consultation would happen in the doctors office, treatment might be a wait time, but not 10 months. The average is over all much lower than that.