Great discussion regarding American and Canadian Health Care

Political discussions on forums? Nope. Nope. Nope.

C'thulhu help me for giving my political opinion on the internet!


Both Countries I feel need to put a greater emphasis on education - training more medical experts to alleviate the burden of wait times. Regardless of the countries health care program... you shell out the cash and the doctor will see you now instead of later, that's human nature not political reform.


I have family who work at a local hospital in Vallejo California and they have told me horror stories before about people coming in with critical conditions that demand immediate attention or risk death and instead are asked to wait in the lobby with everyone else until a Doctor is able to see them, at worst waiting up to 13 hours.... Worse case is you die in the lobby....

We need more medically trained people instead of business entrepreneurs.

Firstly, you say you paid "$0 dollars."  True in the sense that, in that very moment, you paid nothing.  False, becuase you have paid for it through your tax dollars.  I don't know how the Canadian tax system works, if it's similar to the American Progressive Tax system or what?  I don't know.  Bottom line, you paid for it and every Canadian paid for it.

Secondly, that waiting list.  When it comes to life, limb, or eyesight, the government should have no say, directly or indirectly.  The way I see this, is as a sort of "soft" tyranny, if you will.  It comes from the rationing of care and lack of reward to become a doctor.  Why would you want to become a doctor by putting forth so much time, effort, and money toward becoming something when the reward doesn't match up with the effort put forth?  In the states, we have a pilot shortage.  Why?  Don't pilots get paid well?  Yes and no.  Right now, a prospective professional pilot is looking at anywhere from $30k to $80k just for training.  That training only gets you to around 250 hours of flight time.  Prior to 2011 that was all you needed to get hired onto a regional carrier like American Eagle, Delta Express, etc.  Some required 500 and others 750, but you get the idea.  So, at least, you were looking at getting a job out of training or after doing some flight instruction.  In about 2010 or '11, the FAA instituted the 1500 hour rule.  This rule states that a pilot has to have 1500 hours in order to fly for a regional carrier.  At the same time, all that time and money you have put forth to become a commercial pilot has little reward.  Maybe if you get on with a good flight school you can be an instructor till you get the next 750 hours getting maybe $15/hour of flight time.  If the weather is bad, you don't fly.  You don't fly, you don't get paid.  Let's say you get that 1500 hours.  Now you can apply for a job with a regional carrier where starting pay is around $20k per year, give or take $2k.  Where's the reward?  The reward comes after years and years of flying when you finally get hired on with a major carrier like Amercan Airlines, United, Delta, etc.  There you get to start out at around $30k-$40k/year and top out around $100k.  Bottom line here is, when the government meddles in things like healthcare or aviation, for instance, they screw it up.  Sure, treatment may be equal in a single payer system where nobody can get ahead with a few bucks, but that equal treatment means equal destitution in the form of wait times.

Posted by Hereticus5 hours ago

C'thulhu help me for giving my political opinion on the internet!





Both Countries I feel need to put a greater emphasis on education - training more medical experts to alleviate the burden of wait times. Regardless of the countries health care program... you shell out the cash and the doctor will see you now instead of later, that's human nature not political reform.





I have family who work at a local hospital in Vallejo California and they have told me horror stories before about people coming in with critical conditions that demand immediate attention or risk death and instead are asked to wait in the lobby with everyone else until a Doctor is able to see them, at worst waiting up to 13 hours.... Worse case is you die in the lobby....



We need more medically trained people instead of business entrepreneurs.

Basically, what is needed is cheaper education costs.  I pretty much hit on that with the aviation deal.  It's a cost vs reward issue.  Especially in socialist, single payer systems.  Here in the states, I believe we have put a bigger emphasis on education, but it's not entirely reachable by some, depending on what state they live in.

 Being a soldier, I have experienced how a single payer system can be detrimental.  My health issues weren't dire or anything like that.  All I needed was to spend 5 minutes with a podiatrist for him to ask me, "do my feet hurt when I run or stand on my feet for hours?" and "are the inserts helping?" and a few other questions of the like.  In order to get this done, which I had to do every 3 months until he gave me a diagnosis, I had to make my appointment that same day in order to get that appointment for 3 months from then.  Even "sick call" for the podiatry office became appointment only.  At one point, I had some weird infection in my throat.  Went to the emergency room, they sent me home with some antibiotics after like 6 hours of sitting in the waiting room and a treatment room.  I get a call from the Internal Medicine Clinic the next day giving me an appointment for a week later, which by then, the infection or whatever the hell it was, was gone.  Never knew what it was and never will. In the Canadian system, I imagine, this would have taken even longer to get seen.  Want to lower waiting times?  Hire more doctors?  Not enough doctors to hire?  Offer tuition reimbursement or even scholarship programs to make the profession more attractive and easier to reach. 

And Tal, you are right.  There are pros and cons to both systems.  No system created by man will ever be perfect.  No matter how many genius "experts", mathematicians, etc. put their minds to it there will never be a perfect system.  The communist system of the former USSR made everybody equally poor and gave the people equally poor access to healthcare.  The capitalist system creates income inequality, but that inequality is supposed to give an incentive to work, to improve oneself to climb the ladder.  At least in a capitalist system there is a ladder to climb.  As for healthcare, it should be the individual's decision and not that of the government's.  The government has no right to tell someone that they will have to wait for 6 months to get a critical surgery.  At that point, there are countries like the US that can get somebody that surgery in an acceptable amount of time.  In the UK, dentists have a cap on how much they can make or how many patients they can treat per year (government mandated).  In turn, the people of the UK go to countries like Belgium for dental care when they can't get it in their own country because their dentist is on vacation because he/she has met their goverment mandated limit. How would you like to spend your vacation going to get your teeth cleaned, having braces put on your child, getting a cavity filled, a cap replaced or put on, etc?  Going back to my Army supplied healthcare.  This single payer system was focused on getting somebody in and out as quickly as possible and with as little cost as possible.  "Here's some 800mg Ibuprofen, get out."  Thanks for letting me rant Tal.

When you're done with it, would you mind if I could get a copy?  Might be educational.

At the end of the day, the risk/reward of being a Doctor in the US doesn't make it worth it.

There's extremely high costs in educating doctors, which turns to extremely high tuition costs for doctors, and let's not even go into how expensive R&D gets taken out on new medicines, or how medicine is so expensive because of the very complex chemicals and regulatory compliances required. One single slip-up could lead to a multi-million dollar lawsuit that doesn't even remotely fit the error in many (but not all) cases.

So right now, virtually all the risk is on the doctor in the US (I admit ignorance on Canada's educating of doctors) so, by sheer law of economics, virtually all the reward goes with doctors to make the risks worthwhile.

There's the fear that cracking down on these companies will bring an end to the research, but in all honesty, I'd rather the people doing this research NOT be in it for the money. It's a conundrum to be sure.

Pumping money into something doesn't produce results either, just look at the US education/political structure.

LOOK AT WHAT YOU STARTED TALRON, REAP WHAT YOU HAVE SOWED!

I like the Canadian system, but then I'm biased. Yes, there are longer wait times for elective surgery, but where you live can have a huge effect on wait times. I have longer wait times for my dentist than I have ever had to see a doctor or get into emergency, and dental is not covered by our provincial health care. I think the government is in the best place to provide most basic services and needs as they already have an infrastructure in place so can do it with the most cost effectiveness. I don't think population size has much to do with the smaller amount spent per person on health care. Since Canada's population is also spread out further than the US, I would think that the Canadian system more often pays for travel and lodgings and hospital stays. I know where I live is an extreme case, but when my friend had an irregular heart beat the government paid not only for the emergency room visit but the medivac out, flight back and hostel stays for two days for him and his escort.
What I suspect lowers the cost is the middle/working/poor classes know that they can go to the doctor with a small problem, they don't wait until it progresses to a harder and more expensive to treat stage. I think the early detection also has a part to play in the longer wait times for elective surgery. Furthermore, because the government foots the bill for health care, the government has a vested interest in preventative and educational programs such as vaccinations and screening. I'd rather not be sick/ill in the first place, and I enjoy knowing that I don't have to worry about cancer treatment bankrupting myself and/or family.