"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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Renee ~~~
Renee ~~~
I'll take Sweden any day when I can just go and get medicine when I'm sick, regardless of my salary.
Hello Nisa77!
Welcome to the board!!
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Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board
She has a point.
An even more interesting thing (and I haven't had much time to read all 100+ posts on this, so pardon me if I repeat what another has said), the same drugs that were developed in the U.S., manufactured and marketed by the same companies that manufacture and market them in the U.S., sell for LESS in Canada. All you have to do is cross the border and you get substantial savings, yet our Congress has been working to PREVENT U.S. citizens from realizing these savings, saying that drugs marketed in Canada are not as safe as U.S. drugs controlled by FDA (yet, they're the same drugs that are being sold in the U.S.?)
I'm not worried for me or my husband, yet, but there might come a time when we can't afford the medications we need, like when we finally retire.
Renee ~~~
Renee ~~~
Welcome nisa!
I guess we're from two ends of the spectrum because I can't imagine how any American would trust or want the government to provide the healthcare their family needs or that they believe that socialized medicine is sustainable, but I'm glad you're here. Frank open
Renee ~~~
Edited 8/21/2004 11:16 am ET ET by nicecanadianlady
<<The government doesn't provide the health care. Doctors do.>>
It all goes back to the purse strings which the government holds. That's why Canada doesn't have the equipement & technology that is common here, why all the waiting lists for people who are in no condition to wait, why provinces ration expensive medical prodedures, and why they set the prices for medical services & drugs.
It boils down to, you get what you pay for, and I for one, don't want the governement deciding what treatment or drug is available for my
Renee ~~~
I worked to defeat President Clinton's health care proposal back in 1994...amongst the things that rubbed me the wrong way was the proposed plan would have denied me infertility treatment, and prohibited me from even paying for it myself. I was deemed too old to be worthy of it, as they gave a cut-off age of 35. My kids are here no thanks to Bill and Hillary, that's for sure.
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