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Dr. Anne Doig, the incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association, said her country�s health care system is �sick� and �imploding,� the Canadian Press reported.

�We know there must be change,� Doig said in a recent interview. �We�re all running flat out, we�re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.�

Canada�s universal health care system is not giving patients optimal care, Doig added. When her colleagues from across the country gather at the CMA conference in Saskatoon Sunday, they will discuss changes that need to be made, she said.

�We all agree the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,� she said.

Current president of the CMA, Dr. Robert Ouellet, will make a presentation at the conference about his findings when he toured Europe in January, and met with health groups in several countries.

Ouellet has said that �competition should be welcomed, not feared,� meaning private health insurance should have a role in the public health system.

Doig said she isn�t sure what kind of changes will be proposed when the conference wraps up, but she does know that changes have to come � and fast. She said she understands that universal health care, while good in some ways, has not always been helpful for sick people or their families.

"(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now � if it keeps on going without change � is not sustainable," Doig said.

Dr. Doig could come down here and give the same speach.

It is imperfect - it can be improved - and yet - MOST Canadians still support it!

In fact, the guy that invented it - and saw it become law - was named as the most important Canadian ever - in a nation-wide poll looking for our choice as the "greatest Canadian" ever. Go figure!

We do live longer than Americans, we do have lower infant mortality than Americans - and we spend almost half as much of our GDP on health-care - compared to Americans.

And NO Canadian has ever been denied healthcare due to economic circumstances - and we don`t have a SINGLE (let alone 45 million!) citizen who will ever be denied service. We also have no Canadian who has gone bankrupt due to trying to find funds for health-care.

I AM reflecting the views of the average Canadian - not that it`ll ever be posted on a right-wing program, or appreciated on this hunting list.

If you doubt me - talk to a Canadian

Anne Doig isn't a Canadian?



Canadian Medicine

This " Dr. Robert Ouellet "

....has been around exactly HOW LONG ?

GTC

What he said ! It ain't perfect, but it works as well as anything else, maybe better in some ways, and worse in others. But till someone shows me perfection in their healthcare system, I'll stick with this one.

I really can not knock a system that diagnoses my daughter's MS on Thursday and she's seeing the top Neurologist in Quebec on the following Tuesday. Or a system that allows her to pay $75.00 for a month's worth of Interferon drugs that cost $2000.00 a month before Canadian healthcare coverage. A drug that keeps her walking and talking and living a life like everyone else. Like I said, I'll stick with it.

Lynn

Could always be worse, I reckon.

Exactly. Every once in a while you gotta look at what you got, not what you don't got.

Lynn

Certainly our Medicare system has problems, and there's increasing evidence that it's not going to be sustainable in its current form for the long run.

The biggest problem is, the moment a politician suggests modifying it...primarily to allow for "publicly funded services provided by the private sector", the Liberal Left goes totally ballistic, and screams 'em down as somehow "anti-Canadian", and...I'm sorry to say this, believe me...pro-American healthcare, which tends to be the kiss of death for any rational debate on the matter up here.

The best system, IMHO, is that which comprises the best of both worlds, and which is practiced in a number of European nations.

I do believe, within the context of a modern society of considerable wealth, that it's wrong for people to be denied healthcare on the basis of financial ability...or that people should be forced into financial ruin on top of an often serious health situation.

Somewhere there's a doable happy medium between the two...but it's going to be tough to find it within the context of people on both sides of the political spectrum screaming each other down as some sort of extremists.

FWIW.

Well our private medical insurance industry plays the nation like a sucker. The individual insurance companies jump around from state to state like a big checker board sucking the folks dry. When a state's board of insurance rules against them they just move to another state.

thank God all canucks are not as stupidly socialist as you are Brian.

In all statistical indicators of public health; infant mortality, diabetes, death rates, morbidity, maternal mortality, TB transmission.... Canada is doing far better than we are here in the U.S.A.

I see white people...

More than 80% of the population is Canadian-born. In general, the percentage of the population born outside Canada increases as one goes westward from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Persons of whole or partial British (including Irish) origin make up about 28% of the total population; those of whole or partial French origin (centered mainly in Qu�bec, where they constitute some 80% of the population) make up 23%. Other European groups account for 15% of the total populace. About 26% of the population are from mixed backgrounds. Others, mostly Asian, African, and Arab, make up about 6% of the population.

Most of those statistics (infant mortality, diabetes, death rates, morbidity, maternal mortality) are more the sum of individual choices than failings in the health care system. You cannot in any way blame diabetes on the health care system - that disease spreads one extra fork-full at a time. If you do a little research, I think you will find that most of the infant and maternal mortality is due to people having babies when they are not in a position to care for the baby or themselves (a bad personal choice). Death rates and morbidity are greatly affected by personal choices of diet and lack of exercise/physical activity.

That brings us to the last one - TB transmission. TB transmission in the U.S. is worse than it should be because we don't stop the flood of illegal aliens who bring it with them. Yes, there would still be TB cases in the U.S. even if we eliminated illegal immigration, but there are a relatively high percentage of the illegals who have TB, there is a relatively high incidence of drug-resistant TB among illegals, and the illegals often do not seek needed treatment for a variety of reasons. Crack down on illegal immigration, and the number of TB cases will decline.

If you look closer at the statistics, I suspect that many, if not all, of the metrics you listed are worsened for the U.S. by the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens and their offspring who are in the country illegally. Before you get the wrong idea - that's not bashing Hispanics (although they do tend to have a higher incidence of Type 2 diabetes due in large part to the diets typical among poor Latinos), that's just highlighting the problems of illegal immigration - both for the illegal aliens who are putting themselves in a bad situation (albeit probably better than the one they had in their home countries) and for our country.

If Canada's health-care system is "sick" - then America's present system must be on life support.

Interesting to note - that even on this right-wing hunting site - not ONE Canadian present on this list has come out against publically funded health-care.

Hmmm....

I guess all the Canadians on this list are "as stupidly socialist as I am".

By the way Mannlicher - how does it feel to know a child in Cuba has a better chance of making it to adulthood than an American child does? And, how much worse it feel - when you factor in that fact that Americans spend more than 10 times as much per capita.

Must suck, eh?

Here are the stats - courtesy of your own CIA...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

Note: EVERY SINGLE country that has better stats than America - has PUBLICALLY FUNDED health-care systems.

You'd think that people would pause to consider there might be something to that...

BCBrian,

What happens if you eliminate the children of illegal aliens from the infant mortality statistics?

How many of those infant mortalities were due to drug addict mothers?

How many of those infant mortalities were born to single mothers who were too young/stupid to care for a baby?

How many of those infant mortalities were due to the incredible technology and techniques used in the U.S. to save premies in distress that wouldn't have been born alive in other countries?

How many of those infant mortalities were due to babies being born to older parents (or parents who have other biological problems affecting conception) through conception with artificial helps (that happens more frequently in the U.S. than in a lot of other countries)?

One number doesn't tell the whole story.

One number doesn't tell the whole story.
++++++++++++++++++++

Neither do Canada's numbers. What BC fails to put out is that Canada is very selective in the numbers they use for their stats. For instance, the US counts all births whether stillborn or not...Canada excludes it.

Further, with a illegal alien population of over 22 million coupled with the crime attendant to their growing numbers against a population of over 300 million, compared to Canada's 30 million, of course the numbers are going to be degraded a bit. Don't crticize our health care when everyone in the free world, and not so free, chooses the USA as their only destination of choice.There's a price we have to pay for everyone in the world wanting a piece of what this nation provides. How would Canda's health care stats play out inside 3 years if 20 million immigrants came north tomorrow?


When it comes to life saving care, whether cure/survival rates for cancer or other life saving emergencies, there's the US and then well below that stat,lies the rest of the world. When schit hits the fan as to one's health, even most Canadians know it's time for a real quick trip south of the border.

It's also great that the good folks there appear to be satisfied with their care.Especially those with children or the elderly. That's important. Unfortunately, the powers that be who have their fingers and minds on the pulse of Canada's imploding socialistic health care,realize it's imminent destruction is upon them if the current system is left as is and with that, of course, comes their desire to implement competitive health care practices in accordance with our health care services provided
in the US.

And, as we always have, this country is most happy to assist such a wonderful neighbor!

I guess I am another one of those "stupidly socialist" Canadians. Universal health care is one aspect of Canadian life one can only argue against if he sees a potential for greater profitability without it.
That the system has problems is undeniable. The reason for those problems is simple enough: at every level, bureaucrats direct all their efforts toward retaining money rather than providing care. In other words, they have become public servants who behave just as if they worked for private insurance companies.
By the way, there has never been any question of whether or not private insurance companies should operate within the Canadian system. The question is to whether or not health care providers should be able to operate outside the system and still access public funding (those free enterprisers are always willing to bend their principles a bit if public money can come their way!)
The efficacy of having private insurance companies handle health care provision is well demonstrated by the situation in which injured US soldiers find themselves. Soldiers in the "Wounded Warrior" programs spend a great deal of their time trying to get the private insurance companies which provide health care services to cover necessary treatments such as surgery and rehabilitation. It is almost incomprehensible that a soldier with a shattered knee should be denied knee replacement surgery or have to wait for a year to get it but it happens all the time. Advocates for these guys burn out quickly due to the heavy caseloads and the stress of having to fight for every procedure. That's the reality of a private insurance company providing care.
The reason for this is also very simple: The real purpose of the company is not to provide care but to maximize profitability. For every returning soldier who is wheeling around in a chair when he should be walking, there is an insurance executive reclining by a pool watching his account grow.
Another interesting artifact of the American system is the salesman/surgeon. Doctors frequently push for uneccessary surgeries because they can get the insurance company to pay for it. The insurance company, for it's part, may be happy to pay for a surgical procedure because the cost of the procedure may be less (to the company, not to the patient)than less invasive treatment over a period of time.
When I see Americans who are up in arms over the idea of reduced health care premiums, I have to wonder, what on earth are they thinking? A better question might be, where do they make THEIR money?!
A few years back, my wife and I had contemplated moving back to Idaho. If we had done so, we might well be bankrupt today (rather than just poor!). We had really taken health care for granted.
Building a health care system is obviously a very complex operation. As the Canadian experience has shown, it's easy for the thing to get off track. That's no reason not to give it a try. America flushes billions of dollars evry year down various special interest toilets. They would be better served by diverting some into the building of a health care system that benefits the people rather than just the insurance company execs. I personally think they should start with the military and go from there. It is inexusable that companies should profit from injuries to US servicemen and women. GD

BCBrian I left the system you have there and have many
family members all across Canada and depute what you say
I have several members who have "expired" under the system and if they were here would disagree. Cheers NC