Buffalo Boy's Blog

there is no other country i would live in rather than canada, our health care system has its problems, but it works. i feel sick or my family members feel sick we go to our family doctor, dec 24 2006 my wife woke up with a lump on her breast she went to our family doctor who wasted no time sending her to a specialist, long story short she has cancer in feb 2007 her breast was removed, numerous bouts of chemo which are still on going to this day,we have a 6 yr old girl, the stress on the family from the sickness alone is overwhelming enough, but to worry about how one is going to pay for this would be unbearable, we all want the best for our family and friends health wise and as i said earlier our healthcare system isnt perfect and yes there are wait times but guess what this last yr has provided ample proof to myself and my family that our health system works, and for that im grateful. ken

Mike-

Our health system works not only does it work it works well. Yes there will always be stories of someone who had a bad experience, but no system is entirely perfect. My sister at a very young age was diagnosed with a crippling muscle depleting disorder.(in the same family as the flesh eating virus). One out of every 500,000 to 1 million children get this disease. It is rare enought that most doctors and even dermatologists aren't completely familiar with it.

Anyways before I get off topic. My sister has required bi-weekly and not monthly visits to Sick Kids and now St Mikes hospital. She receives an IV that is called gama gobulin(incorrect spelling I think). It's made up of blood proteins and all things she requires to stay healthy. Well this gama treatment would cost the average person $2000 a pop in the US. So can you imagine $4000 dollars a month for my family? That's not even including the cost of visiting the hospital using the bed for the day and seeing different doctors specializing in this disease and other skin disorders. There is simply no way financially my family could have covered the cost from the onset of this disease to present. For years now my mom who isn't very spiritual has thanked god we live in Canada and not the US, because she's always been frightened of what the might have meant had we lived there.

So can there be longer waits at hospitals? Of course there can be, and do some people receive the shite end of the stick definitely, but those instances are few and far between. I think almost all Canadians can sleep well knowing if they wake up ill in the morning they dont' have to worry about mortgaging their house.

Mike-

Our health system works not only does it work it works well. Yes there will always be stories of someone who had a bad experience, but no system is entirely perfect. My sister at a very young age was diagnosed with a crippling muscle depleting disorder.(in the same family as the flesh eating virus). One out of every 500,000 to 1 million children get this disease. It is rare enought that most doctors and even dermatologists aren't completely familiar with it.

Anyways before I get off topic. My sister has required bi-weekly and not monthly visits to Sick Kids and now St Mikes hospital. She receives an IV that is called gama gobulin(incorrect spelling I think). It's made up of blood proteins and all things she requires to stay healthy. Well this gama treatment would cost the average person $2000 a pop in the US. So can you imagine $4000 dollars a month for my family? That's not even including the cost of visiting the hospital using the bed for the day and seeing different doctors specializing in this disease and other skin disorders. There is simply no way financially my family could have covered the cost from the onset of this disease to present. For years now my mom who isn't very spiritual has thanked god we live in Canada and not the US, because she's always been frightened of what the might have meant had we lived there.

So can there be longer waits at hospitals? Of course there can be, and do some people receive the short end of the stick definitely, but those instances are few and far between. I think almost all Canadians can sleep well knowing if they wake up ill in the morning they dont' have to worry about mortgaging their house.

The financial peace of mind when it comes to your health wins out then...I am waiting for some Buffalo/US peoples to chime in here too.
I hear it all the time from supervisors and managers in healthcare, its all about the money, what can we bill for, how much is that treatment worth for the clinic, its disgusting at times when you hear that when it should be about what will help your patients get better, not how much is it going to cost.

I do like our system better than the States, however it is true that our system does need to be retooled as it does not take into account some factors that are apparent, mainly the change in demographics that we are now facing. How will the few pay for the many as we reach the imbalance that the baby boomers have created.
It is inevitable that we will and in some respects are in a part pay system, which could relieve some of the strain on the system.
One point that counters your view though, is if it is so easy to go to the doctor without paying you end up with these old nannies showing up for every ailment under the sun, rather than when they need to go, so in these cases a user fee is stongly required.
Like I say, our system will need to be tinkered with, but I like our starting point over yours.

Lew I see where you are coming from there, how can the Canadian system possibly pay for everyone who will need it in the coming years and I would make the point that the Canadian system creates a preventative approach to healthcare rather than a reactive. Many times the reactive approach is too late with cancers and all that.

Old nannies showing up like you say with every possible concern happens here but sometimes those old nannies come up with something serious. So it happens here too.

I would bet that the Baby Boomers up there are generally healthier than those here because they have gotten the consistency and the stress free healthcare.

Mike, I don't mean to take away from this discussion here, but there was a similar discussion to this on my blog awhile back regarding my reaction to Michael Moore's documentary Sicko. It was an interesting discussion that I think touched on both sides of Canada's health care system. Here is the link if you're interested:

http://mebreathing.blogs.com/this_is_me_breathing/2007/08/sickened-by-sic.html

Americans seem to have very black and white views about Canadian health care. Either they think "we know it doesn't work" or they share Michael Moore's utopian view. Not surprisingly, the truth lies somewhere in between these extremes, but more importantly, there is a fair amount of variation in the effectiveness of the Canadian system.

The most common misconception that Americans have about the Canadian system is that it is government run and hence monolithic. It is actually a single payer system in which the government pays the bills, but physicians and hospitals operate at arm's length from the government. Furthermore, it is not really one system but ten (or thirteen) systems since health care is constitutionally a provincial responsibility and it is the provincial governments that pay the bills directly (the federal government contributes only indirectly via transfers to the provinces).

As a result, there are differences in policies and funding priorities between the provinces. And since hospitals are autonomous organizations, there can be substantial differences within a province. Some hospitals seem to be well run while others seem to have management and/or staffing challenges. For example, you can go to an ER at one hospital and be out in a couple hours while you might have to wait six or eight hours at another.

It is my view that the biggest challenge in Canada concerning access is related to where you live; in particular, there is an urban/rural split with regard to access. If you happen to live in a city, you probably will enjoy good access to health care and if you live in Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal you may enjoy excellent health care. On the other hand, if you live in a rural area that is not within convenient travelling distance to a larger centre, then you might have to put up with limited access to health care.

There are a number of challenges related to providing health care in rural areas. The most important of these is that most newly graduated doctors seem to have a very strong preference for living in an urban environment and as a result many small communities have enormous difficulty recruiting doctors. It is also a fact of life that hospitals in cities receive the lion's share of charitable donations in the health care sector and hence have much greater budgetary capacity to expand or upgrade their facilities and programs. It is my impression that this urban/rural split is also an issue in the U.S. (it was actually the premise for the TV program "Northern Exposure"), but it is one that tends to be overshadowed there by higher priority issues related to insurance and affordability.

I think the bottom line is that the Canadian health care system works reasonably well for most Canadians. For anyone with deep enough pockets that cost isn't an issue, the U.S. system may be better, but the U.S. system doesn't work very well for the average person. The proof of this is statistical (see http://tinyurl.com/27t5db). This graphic shows that over the 30 year period from 1975 to 2004, the U.S. ranked ahead of Canada in per capita income but behind Canada in life expectancy.

Keep in mind that since 2004, the last year for which data is shown in this graphic, the Canadian dollar has appreciated considerably against the U.S. dollar. When the database is updated with data for 2005, 2006 and 2007, the gap between Canadian and U.S. per capita incomes should shrink substantially, but I doubt that the life expectancy gap will shrink since it should not have any correlation with the currency exchange rate.

Oops. The link http://tinyurl.com/27t5db in my last post got messed up (the text is displayed correctly, but the underlying HTML for the anchor is incorrect).

Well put R.A. What you say makes a lot of sense.

Nice RA, thanks for your comments I am still waiting for any US peoples to come forward and provide their opinions. IF they don't say anything Im giving the Canadian Healthcare system the thumbs up over ours.
(I would have anyway).
For myself working in the US system is insane at times. You have to worry about doing paperwork 8 different ways to please 8 or more different insurance companies and then there are the ones like Univera or managed care that limit your visits despite the patient having a long term problem.

As a therapist who cares for the people I see,I had to turn someone away because their insurance stopped paying after just 15 visits. this was a person who had schizophrenia, mental retardation and had arthritis and was very painful and required skilled services to help maintain functional mobility and I had to tell them that we could not provide services, how sad is that?

In Canada, at least you know if you need it, youll get it.

A single payer system certainly reduces the paperwork burden on health care providers. I've read about U.S. physicians who have become so frustrated dealing with insurance companies that they have stopped accepting all insurance (for example, see http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2001-02-19-medicare.htm and scroll down to the first paragraph under the section title "Frustration increasing").

However, not all medical procedures are covered by governments in Canada. For example, several years ago the Ontario government stopped paying for eye examinations, which seemed to me to be a pretty dumb decision. A more reasonable exclusion applies to most elective cosmetic procedures. Sometimes expensive new treatments are not covered until medical trials have established that the medical benefits provided by a new treatment exceed that of the existing treatment. That said, if a procedure is covered in Canada, there generally aren't any restrictions on the duration of the treatment.

Most proposals to "fix" the U.S. health care system that I've seen would do nothing to reduce the paperwork burden or other difficulties created by the insurance companies. Since Congress does not have the courage to challenge the position of the insurance companies, I wouldn't hold your breath expecting any real change. Congress has demonstrated on more than one occasion that it has absolutely no problem being bought by the biggest spender.

This is an interesting conversation. I've learned some new things about our own health care system.

On an unrelated note, Mike, does your blog software provide you with any way to list the 10 most recent comments on the right sidebar? It would make following a conversation like this easier once the post has dropped off the main page. Just a thought.

No not at the moment, Ill have to check with Mike Boon on that one and see what that would look like.