"Free" Health Care

Avatar for schifferle
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Registered: 03-27-2003
"Free" Health Care
186
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 8:58am
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20040721.shtml

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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Avatar for isabella710
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Registered: 08-22-2003
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 5:35pm
Wow with the 3-4 heart medications my husband takes and the asthma medications I need we would go broke without prescription coverage for that "free" insurance. So we would have to pay higher taxes, then also pay for a prescription plan.

I still like the way things are. I think if we had more people here working and contributing to the insurance plans, we would be a lot better off.


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Registered: 06-16-2004
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 5:51pm
Here a lot of employers provide additional insurance (dental, prescription drug, life insurance, etc..). But some don't. Coverage for basic dental, vision and prescription drugs for a single person is about $42 cdn (about $30 US) so it's not exactly out of reach. And of course, people do get free medications while they are in the hospital or under treatments such as cancer, etc.. Not sure about heart drugs, as I don't know anyone taking them.

My understanding is that when you take into consideration that our taxes include health care, our true disposable income is considered to be higher here (not by much mind you) than in the US. At first look, it may appear that we're paying more taxes, but then we don't need to use our net income for things like healthcare premiums. Not to mention one year maternity leave, and many other benefits.

But to each his own. If Americans are happy with their system, they should keep it as is. My understanding was that Americans were the most unhappy of all westerners about their healthcare system (not the services themselves)

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Registered: 06-17-2004
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 6:16pm

Thanks for the reminder. I didn't have time to respond when I read it & have been meaning to dig up that post again.


I'm not very sympathetic, because frankly, I'm skeptical of the information the guy gave you. It just doesn't add up. If he started working 20 years ago at $18,000 that strikes me as a reasonable salary for an entry level worker around 1984. I would expect someone who was unskilled with a high school education or less have been making significantly less. I also can't figure how a low, but decent wage job has turned

Renee ~~~

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Registered: 06-17-2004
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 6:23pm

It was in a tv news story about drug re-importation which is a pretty big issue right now. They said that many drugs available here are not available in Canada. Cost was the only reason that was given for the difference.

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 6:44pm
Well, it is true, whether you choose to believe it or not. You might think he should have been earning more, but it didn't happen. You want to overlook the circumstances of an individual who is in a minority often discriminated against and also has a poor education. He made the best of it by being reliable at the job he had, and after 20 years was poorly rewarded. I never said his case was representative of all others. I just gave it as a real life example. And again, you talk about lack of sympathy for him, bully for you that you can remain so far removed from the suffering of common hard working people. Regardless, he doesn't need my sympathy or yours. He's got medicaid now. My point was that we are subsidizing him, & I think it's wrong. Do you think this is the best we can do as a country? I don't. I think we can figure out a better plan somehow.

My next case example (see message #:3442.115) seems to have been largely ignored. This woman won the opportunity to purchase health insurance thru her union, & as has been advised here, she has done so, but was unable to buy into the plan for her daughter. This seems to refute the idea that only really sick people will buy insurance when offerred, as she is not sick, just a responsible person. Too bad that we as taxpayers have to subsidize her daughters health care. This woman would have bought family plan health insurance, if it was offerred to her.

So I'm not talking about real people in order to draw out your sympathy. I'm talking about real people so we can discuss the issue with an eye on the reality out there.

Avatar for isabella710
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Registered: 08-22-2003
Wed, 08-18-2004 - 12:27am
I guess there's good and bad about both systems. And there are probably people on both sides of each system that either like or dislike them.

For me, I am used to paying a certain amount for insurance coverage and then the co-pays. My daughters were not the type to get sick much so that was good. My now 15 year old daughter took her first antibiotic at 9 years old so we have been fortunate that way. My current dh does have a heart condition that he is being treated for. I have asthma.

I guess when you get used to a certain type of healthcare it may be hard to imagine doing things any other way.


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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Wed, 08-18-2004 - 1:45am

<<Well, it is true, whether you choose to believe it or not.>>


What makes you so sure he told you the truth? If you want me to buy this

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Wed, 08-18-2004 - 8:09am
Now you presume to know that he wasn't worth what he was hired in at, really you are insulting a person who worked at a hard job for 20 years, are you sure you should be doing that? I made the opposite assumption, that he should have received higher raises, and he felt safe staying there while his employer took advantage of him. My job puts me in the position of asking certian questions obviously, as I'm not asking complete strangers these questions for my own amusement. My job also involves certian verification procedures, so he did not lie to me. At the same time, I am not a social worker, I am not allowed to tell people what to do or scold people for what they should have done.

< What makes you so sure he told you the truth? If you want me to buy this senario, you're going to have to give me a resonable explanation of how an unskilled uneducated worker winds up with a job making at least $6,000 more than than his background warrants and in twenty years parlays that same job into a deadend that hasn't even managed to keep up with inflation. >

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He wasn't an immigrant, he is a citizen with full legal standing. Your image of a family with several children is a sterotype. This man is real, and he is not far outside reality. Again you insert insulting explanations here, sterotypes about underserving minorities are more acceptable to you than a real story that doesn't fit your preconceptions. The fact that you cannot grasp his reality means to me that you are out of touch.

< My experience is dealing primarily with your average run of the mill, limited or non-English speaking immigrant with no legal standing, who is routinely discriminated against and taken advantage of, has an elementary school education, several children to support and often no spouse to share the burden with. I know their reality and the difficulties that they face daily, and I know that the senario you describe is so far outside of the real world as to be too ludicrous to contemplate unless this guy had major psychological or addiction issues or was completely incompetent and kept his job because he was so pathetic that his employer didn't have the heart to fire him.>

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Reality has no value in discussing reality?????

< Analysing a unique personal situation has no value when discussing public policy if it's not representative of others.>

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Yes, well we agree that he got the assistance he needs. Where we disagree is you think it's all his fault. I think if he had been offerred the opportunity to get affordable insurance thru his job, he would have done so, and would not need our help, and would not be subjected to the disrespect of people like you.

< I have a lack of sympathy for someone with the life story you describe because I don't believe it's accurate. I do believe a man made some poor choices, has had some bad luck, and has found himself in a difficult situation; for him I have sympathy, however he wound up where he is, and I'm thankful that we provide Medicaid for people like him. >

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OK then. How can we fix the system?

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I'm not looking for debate necessarily, I'm looking for agreement on what the problem is & how it might be solved. I am pleased when we agree, not disappointed.

< Now this is a real senario that affects some percentage of the population. As I said in a previous post, we probably agree on many of the changes that need to be made to improve access to insurance, so you're not going to get a debate out of me on this one. Sorry to disappoint.>

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-16-2004
Wed, 08-18-2004 - 10:03am
It may have more to do with whether they are approved to be safe. I know of some drugs (including non-prescription) that were not allowed here in Canada but yet deemed safe in the US. I'm sure the reverse is true too. I remember in my teens when diet soda was available in the US and not in canada, and I couldn't wait to get it in Canada. Granted, it's not a drug, but the reality is that we have different governments with different rules.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Wed, 08-18-2004 - 12:11pm

Perhaps I am not explaining my

Renee ~~~

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