"Free" Health Care
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| Wed, 07-21-2004 - 8:58am |
Free health care
Walter E. Williams
July 21, 2004
Let's start out by not quibbling with America's socialists' false claim that health-care service is a human right that people should have regardless of whether they can pay for it or not and that it should be free. Before we buy into this socialist agenda, we might check out just what happens when health-care services are "free." Let's look at our neighbor to the north -- Canada.
The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver, B.C.-based think tank, has done yeoman's work keeping track of Canada's socialized health-care system. It has just come out with its 13th annual waiting-list survey. It shows that the average time a patient waited between referral from a general practitioner to treatment rose from 16.5 weeks in 2001-02 to 17.7 weeks in 2003. Saskatchewan had the longest average waiting time of nearly 30 weeks, while Ontario had the shortest, 14 weeks.
Waiting lists also exist for diagnostic procedures such as computer tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound. Depending on what province and the particular diagnostic procedure, the waiting times can range from two to 24 weeks.
As reported in a December 2003 story by Kerri Houston for the Frontiers of Freedom Institute titled "Access Denied: Canada's Healthcare System Turns Patients Into Victims," in some instances, patients die on the waiting list because they become too sick to tolerate a procedure. Houston says that hip-replacement patients often end up non-ambulatory while waiting an average of 20 weeks for the procedure, and that's after having waited 13 weeks just to see the specialist. The wait to get diagnostic scans followed by the wait for the radiologist to read them just might explain why Cleveland, Ohio, has become Canada's hip-replacement center.
Adding to Canada's medical problems is the exodus of doctors. According to a March 2003 story in Canada News (www.canoe.ca), about 10,000 doctors left Canada during the 1990s. Compounding the exodus of doctors is the drop in medical school graduates. According to Houston, Ontario has chosen to turn to nurses to replace its bolting doctors. It's "creating" 369 new positions for nurse practitioners to take up the slack for the doctor shortage.
Some patients avoided long waits for medical services by paying for private treatment. In 2003, the government of British Columbia enacted Bill 82, an "Amendment to Strengthen Legislation and Protect Patients." On its face, Bill 82 is to "protect patients from inadvertent billing errors." That's on its face. But according to a January 2004 article written by Nadeem Esmail for the Fraser Institute's Forum and titled "Oh to Be a Prisoner," Bill 82 would disallow anyone from paying the clinical fees for private surgery, where previously only the patients themselves were forbidden from doing so. The bill also gives the government the power to levy fines of up to $20,000 on physicians who accept these fees or allow such a practice to occur. That means it is now against Canadian law to opt out of the Canadian health-care system and pay for your own surgery.
Health care can have a zero price to the user, but that doesn't mean it's free or has a zero cost. The problem with a good or service having a zero price is that demand is going to exceed supply. When price isn't allowed to make demand equal supply, other measures must be taken. One way to distribute the demand over a given supply is through queuing -- making people wait. Another way is to have a medical czar who decides who is eligible, under what conditions, for a particular procedure -- for example, no hip replacement or renal dialysis for people over 70 or no heart transplants for smokers.
I'm wondering just how many Americans would like Canada's long waiting lists, medical czars deciding what treatments we get and an exodus of doctors.

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Not sure what those people are. Chronically sick people? People who get cancer and other life threatening diseases or accidents? Are they the 'opportunists' you are referring to? Are you suggesting people will make themselves sick and maim themselves to get healthcare? How does one get 'opportunistic'? Hypochondriacs?
Yep, I see it now.. Healthcare becomes universal, and everyone will run for shots, and checkups for no reason. They'll get unneeded blood tests, pap smears, unneeded biopsies, just for 'kicks'.... ;)
Renee ~~~
Renee ~~~
P.s. I just got back from vacation... camping at Sandbanks. Have you been there? Fabulous beach..
Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board
Nicecanadianlady!!!!!
Welcome back from your trip!
Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board
Renee ~~~
Renee ~~~
I think we should make some changes with the current system we have here in the US but I don't believe in paying higher taxes to get "free" healthcare. Even my daughters who are 15 and 18 know that the ER will treat people even without insurance and they ask, why do we need to give them "free" healthcare, they already have it. My dh has heart problems and has been to the ER and my ex's girlfriend has spent a lot of time in the hospital for some severe health problems so they have seen this themselves.
Basically the same people that are already abusing the system here will be getting it free anyway since they already are and those of us that are paying taxes will end up paying more and having lousier care. No thanks.
It's also very easy to generalize about "those" people, but I bet if you asked them, they would say they would love to have health insurance. And even for those of us who are lucky enough to have good insurance, it doesn't guarantee that what we need will be approved or paid for. And I have a feeling the problem is just going to get more complicated as the 'baby-boomers' reach retirement age, and unfortunately most likely will have more health problems. If the people who don't have health insurance are lucky enough to live in the same city, or close to a medical school, sometimes they can go to the medical school clinics for reduced costs.
Yep, that's hard to say.
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Maybe if insurance costs were made more affordable due to more people actually paying for insurance, things would be easier for all. Maybe we should be teaching all children in school how to take their temperature, how to treat common ailments that they don't have to run to the doctor for, etc it would cut down on people running for small things and wasting time and money. But I don't think the answer is our taxes paying for free healthcare.
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