I’ve had an opportunity to watch the Canadian version of affordable health care in action with all its limitations with my Canadian husband’s family. A few years ago, I was startled to see the cover of Maclean’s, a national Canadian magazine, showing a picture of a dog on an examining table with the headline, “Your Dog Can Get Better Health Care Than You.” It went on to say that young Canadian medical students have no incentive to become doctors to humans because they can’t make any money. Instead, there is a great surge of Canadian students becoming veterinarians. That’s where the money is. A Canadian animal can have timely MRIs, surgeries and any number of tests it needs to receive quality health care.My sister-in-law had to wait two months to get a General Practitioner. During this period she spent her days in bed vomiting continuously, unable to get any food or drink down because she couldn’t get an appointment with the doctor. When she finally did, the doctor said, “Oh you don’t need me, you need a specialist.” That took another two weeks until she got a pill that corrected the problem.Really, is this what we want?All of my husband’s cousins are doctors. Several have moved to the U.S. because after their years of intensive schooling, they want to reap financial rewards. My 75-year-old Canadian girlfriend was denied treatment because she was too old. She died recently, having been given palliative care. That’s all the system would allow.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Tell it, Sister Suze!
WSJ column by actress and health advocate Suzanne Somers on FHer-care.
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The experience of all 40 or so of the countries with single payer will bear close scrutiny as the US health care debate goes back to square 1. You here know I have been calling the ACA Fubarred for a while here.
ReplyDeleteWe cannot brook the status quo either. The freedom loving one where we are all forced to pay for others bennies, economically forced.
ReplyDeleteEmployers believe that these costs must either be recovered through the prices of the goods or services they sell (i.e., passing along the rising costs of health care to their customers in the form of higher prices), or taken out of the return to the company’s owners. On that belief, American executives now complain pitiably that the high cost of American health care makes their enterprises uncompetitive in the global marketplace.
All the more argument for decoupling health care from employment. Just have it be on the same basis as auto insurance and home insurance and life insurance.
ReplyDeleteAll options will be on the table again. You promised to repeal and replace. Let's go deep six the ACA.
ReplyDeleteMr. Dings is at the locker room door, passing out the thinking caps! This way, everybody!
ReplyDeleteOne thing we should have learned from this is that ramrodding a controversial and complicated (by its very nature insurance continues to be a complicated, boring actually, subject) bill with no bipartisan support is not the way to go. Sorry, reasonable gentlepersons needed now more than ever. Also, by its very nature, a committee is an awful way to produce a working result, the ole, camel being a horse designed by a committee thing.
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