Canada's Health Care System in Trouble (news flash?!)

[TCups]

See:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jbjzPEY0Y3bvRD335rGu_Z3KXoQw

[geiger]

"It's not about choosing between an American system or a Canadian system," said Doig. "The whole thing is about looking at what other people do."

"That's called looking at the evidence, looking at how care is delivered and how care is paid for all around us (and) then saying 'Well, OK, that's good information. How do we make all of that work in the Canadian context? What do the Canadian people want?' "

the whole point. the world is not black and white, and it also shouldn't be.

[TCups]

One of the most frightening undertones of all of these health care discussions, at least to me, is the notion of a comprehensive system of electronic medical records available to the state.  Medicine historically has been a very private matter between the patient and physician.  No more.

[geiger]

TCups - 8/18/2009  10:14 AM

One of the most frightening undertones of all of these health care discussions, at least to me, is the notion of a comprehensive system of electronic medical records available to the state.  Medicine historically has been a very private matter between the patient and physician.  No more.

it's not available to the state, only to physicians

"A short-term achievable goal would be to accelerate the process of getting electronic medical records into physicians' offices," she said. "That's one I think ought to be a priority and ought to be achievable."

A long-term goal would be getting health systems "talking to each other," so information can be quickly shared to help patients.

that would greatly speed up the process although it poses more security related risks, but nowadays everything is switching to digital so this was a question of when not if. point is that the state has no access to them.

[TCups]

Hey Geiger:  Love your sense of humor, bro.  Now think slowly and carefully about this.  

If it will greatly speed up the "process"

and if the "process" is to be a state-run medical care program that makes more efficient use of resources and allocates funding of care and procedures based on quality of life.

Then, who do you suspect is going to be monitoring health care expenditures?  Hell, CMS (Medicare) already does just that with Medicare patients.  You contention is like saying the IRS isn't really going to have access to your payroll records.  

Think slowly and carefully, please.  Do your really think Nanci Pelosi and Harry Reid are world class humanitarians interested only in the public good, or do you think they feel like they are an elite ruling class, better qualified to tell everyone else how to live their lives and spend their money, with the added benefit they are exempt from the provisions of the laws they enact and that they become obscenely wealthy while getting to fly around the world on Gulfstream G-4s, doing "fact finding" trips on the tax payer's money, when they are not in Washington DC screwing us, or at home in their mansions in San Francisco and Martha's Vinyards and such?

Take my solemn word of honor on this, sir, please.  Government regulations do absolutely nothing to speed up the process or improve the efficiency or overall quality of health care delivery in the USA, so help me, God.

[North Pack]

ANYTHING is available to the state, - and ANY time they want it. Do you HONESTLY believe any state can't get what it really wants??? ... Hell, the Exxon Valdez was charged with "illegal hunting" for Chr*st sake. Regardless of the accident, - is there anyone on the planet that believes that thing was actually hunting???

[geiger]

@TCups, i think you're blowing it out of proportions. the politicians would certainly not have legal access to individual record. at least that's not how it should be. this just means the previous paper record would become digital so physicians would have quicker and easy access to them. who would monitor health care expenditures. most likely a board of doctors that would base their findings on group statistics, not individual records. that means nobody except your doctors could get access to it, if they did you probably could sue them. this is how the system should work, if they're planning a big conspiracy to make everyone's medical records available. well then, it's not a good idea.

[TCups]

In Bill Clinton's first term, they had the individual FBI files of his biggest political enemies in the Whitehouse basement in the hands of one of his political hacks, Craig somebody, wasn't it.  There is a well documented history of the IRS being used to harass those unfriendly to the current administration.  You need to do a bit of research on "data mining", and then think very carefully about the implications of an autocratic government with the resources available and how they might be used.  You need to think carefully about the fact that the authority currently being invested in a couple of dozen "Czars", self appointed by the President, not elected, not responsible to anyone else, and put in control of things like which automobile dealerships get closed, what salaries corporate executives will earn, which CEO's have to go, and on and on (all completely un-Constututional, and in the opinion of many, illegal, BTW), or the fact for that matter that the whole scheme of government run health care is clearly not permitted by our Constitutional restrictions on the federal government.  The only personal records anyone has any difficulty obtaining are things like a bona fide birth certificate for BO or Hillary's billing records from the Rose Law Firm.

But I digress.  I have no particular dislike for Canadians or their health care system, except when it is repeatedly held up to Americans as a better system than what we currently have.  And when Canadian health care therefor becomes a tool to use to gain approval for a change here, then I an others will be speaking out, loudly and repeatedly, not against Canada, but against socialized medicine.  It is far from the ideal solution often portrayed in this country by those on the left intent on instituting a similar, but incredibly more massive socialized medical system in this country.

And for goodness sake, don't kid yourself about the intrusiveness of your government or mine.  One of the first rules for radicles is that the ends always justify the means, and when the "ends" is socialism, well . . .

[EdNunya]

Bottom line, do you want the same folks running the Health care system:

that set up and are virtually running Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac?

The same folks that vote on the largest spending bill,  rushed through because "we can't wait", with amendments added at the last second.. THAT THEY HAD NOT READ, because it was over 1000 pages?  

That will more than likely NOT hold their own feet to the fire and enroll in this "system"...

These same folks that want to ram this through could screw up a one car parade...

Look at the IRS...  Look at they "system" they keep TWEAKING there...  The IRS can't even keep the rules straight and give a straight answer when asked, a very large % of the time... The Sec Treas can't even do his taxes without making a "mistake"....

I think not!

Our Federal Government is capable of doing one thing well..  Kill folks and break things...And they only do that well when they give the professionals a defined mission, and then get out of the way and let them accomplish the mission.. When the mission is accomplished, the Dept of State is supposed to take over.. And we've seen how well that works...

The feds need to stick to that, clean up the illegal immigration mess we've got...  And keep their eye on the ball..  I've seen what they can do with a "health system", and until realitivly recently, it ain't pretty...

73
Semper Fi
Ed

[geiger]

unless you have total anarchy thing like you mentioned are going to happen. all that article mentioned is switching from paper to digital, that's all. if one would like to get info on his political enemies he'd do by paper or digital.
that's why i'm saying you're fighting the wrong enemy, it's not just BO, it's the corrupt politicians and CEO's. and the whole system is built to support them. fight against that and you'll get my moral support.
and stop it already with this birth certificate thing.

HONOLULU - State officials in Hawaii on Monday said they have once again checked and confirmed that President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen, and therefore meets a key constitutional requirement for being president.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/07/28/20090728obamahawaii28-ON.html

see why people get ridiculed...it's when they are trying to bring down a concrete wall by banging their heads against it.

i take the government as inherently "not for the people", that's why i will never stop criticizing leadership. i understand that, but i don't understand why do you think the right is the better side?
unless you're an anarchist, the government will always exist and they will pose rules on you. personally i see no difference whether is the left or right side screwing you. i actually hate this kind of categorization and it's all attributed to the  french revolution which started all this.


edit: i forgot to mention i'm quite fond of the "co-op's" idea. it helped our country in the past it might work even now. there is no clear translation to english. it's basically a bunch of people making an "organisation" that handles things on a smaller scale. which means corruption is self limiting and profit goes directly to the ones working and it's not channeled to one person or exported without consent. i think in general it's better to keep things on a smaller scale since it's easier to manage.

@EdNunya, i'm actually agreeing with you more than you think. and your post is quite amusing :)

[North Pack]

Actually I'm probably the only Conservative in the country that doesn't have a real problem with co-ops - depending of course on how it's set-up & run. .... I get a real kick out of BO explaining how this HAS to be rushed through, no time to lose ... when it took him about 6 months to pick out a freakin' dog for the White house.

[TCups]

HR-2300
1000+ pages of legal-eese
House members hadn't read it, but it was an emergency and had to be passed before the recess.
Emergency, because 40,000,000 out of over 300,000,000 were un-insured
Coverage for non-citizens including illegal immigrants
An optimistically projected $17,000,000,000,000 cost over the next 10 years
Critics are criticized for not having read it and our elected representatives, and BO himself, admit that they haven't read it and aren't sure of everything that is in it.
Having read it, it turns out things are in there that we were assured weren't in there, and then assured that they would be taken out (and then probably re-inserted by the political loophole of "reconciliation" when the House and Senate bills are combined.
Local community activism on the right is called disruptive, Nazi-like, un-American, non-productive etc.
Politicians are canceling their town hall meetings rather than openly debating the issues.
A majority of Americans like their current health care system, and oppose the current legislation (as best anyone is able to determine what that is or would have been) had the bill been passed into law on an emergent basis (like the $870B stimulus package), that as far as most Americans can see, isn't working out all that well.
A huge beneficiary will be the Union-run health care plans, because they can off-load their health care costs to the taxpayers.

Hey, before we spend a minimum of $17,000,000,000,000 on health care over the next 10 years, lets examine what we are paying for very closely, OK?
$17T for 320 million Americans is $53K each or $5.3K per year per every man, woman and child, less any administrative expenses.  If you are a family of 3, that is about $16K per year in your tax bill for medical insurance if it is instituted and if the budget projections are accurate.  Ask yourself:  If you had $5300 per annum given to you as a tax break, could you buy acceptable insurance coverage?  Probably yes.

But that isn't how it will work.  Your $5300 of tax cost will be re-distributed, from those according to their means, to those according to their needs by a government empowered to levy the tax, increase it if necessary, fine you if you don't participate, all for a system that is unsustainable.

OK, that is simplistic.  But lets put it this way.  This will be, by far, the largest government-run entitlement program in modern history, and with it, the biggest transfer of power from individuals and the private sector to the US government.  Please think about it carefully.

[North Pack]

And of course we, as a country - are in such great financial shape to do this. What's a few trillion here or there???? ... I've found that in a relatively short time frame, - what a program is projected to cost - and what is actually costs are about THREE TIMES the original estimate. Take any number being put out by anyone, - and AT LEAST double that, just for starters - you won't be close, just less shocked when the real bill comes in.

[geiger]

i totally agree with some of your points here. politicians not reading what they sign up, that's an utter disgrace. i've seen actual videos of the EU parliament members voting on a bill just by throwing hands up and someone skimpily counting them without any regard if it's actually a yes or no. i'm getting slowly fed up of the EU.  believe me politicians like that are not endemic to the US.
i personally hate our government with a passion and i laugh at people who voted for the current administration that turned up screwing them big time. i promised to myself i will never ever listen to what the majority thinks at election time. as for the US election, i knew Obama would win, but Ron Paul would have had my vote despite of some disagreements with his policy.

[gamo2hammerli]

I think it's time for a 2 tier system.... too much abuse right now from the public, docs and the bureaucratics.

The docs and nurses HAVE to work 40 hours for the public, then they can work "extra" hours for cash in the private sector.  A system is needed so the docs can "rent" the operating rooms/beds/tools etc. ....for the clients with money or need to get their medical problem looked after sooner.  Part of the money collected can be put back into the Public sector......since most hospitals claim they're always short of money.  Just my $0.02.