RE: Workers Paradise. /Political rant.

jbugden@smtplink.alis.ca wrote:

>> By spreading the risk you minimize the cost.

<...>

>Canada has a single payer system

Translation: a more palatable term for "socialised medicine"

>and we spend about two thirds as much as the
>U.S. on health care as a percentage of G.N.P. We manage to insure all Canadians
>while about 35% of people in the U.S. have *no* health insurance.

So why in the world do those crazy Canadians keep coming here for medical care, when they can get it from your compassionate bureaucrats? What could be their compulsion to spend money they don't need to spend? Charitable impulses toward our impoverished medical profession?

BTW, looking at historical costs of medical care and the level of government involvement, it is safe to say that the US has too much socialism in our medical system right now, and that it what's making the best system (ours) so expensive when it would not be otherwise.

>Yes, the insurance premium is not optional.

True.

>Yes, it *is* cheaper.

*False.* It is cheaper for _SOME_, and more expensive for others (in terms of either money, or waiting with pain, or both) and has an _ultimately high cost [the death penalty] for still others, who are forced to wait for the "compassionate" bureaucrats [who naturally know more about what patients' bodies need than the patients do themselves] to give them permission to get medical care they would otherwise purchase before death.

> So why in the world do those crazy Canadians keep coming here for

> BTW, looking at historical costs of medical care and the level of
>government involvement, it is safe to say that the US has too much
>socialism in our medical system right now, and that it what's making the
>best system (ours) so expensive when it would not be otherwise. 

I wouldn't be so proud of the US health care system; the actual quality 
of care is really pretty awful, even with insurance. Even though the 
NAtional Health Service in the uK is woefully underfunded, I've always 
had much better treatment than I have from HMOs here; even seeing a 
specialist privately, at home, with no insurance, is cheaper than getting 
an X-Ray looked at by someone who once met a radiologist a cocktail 
party. 

The UK split the provision of services from the purchasing, so that
hospitals have to compete for business, and a HMO like funding model for
primary care physicians - fixed capitation rates, so the more a doctor
spends, the less money he/she makes). It may be that the most efficient
solution for health-care is a hybrid scheme along these lines. 

There are ideological reasons that argue  for rejecting  such 
compulsory schemes  based on that element of coercion; it's hard to 
make the case against purely on efficiency grounds.

Simon  
---
Cause maybe  (maybe)		      | In my mind I'm going to Carolina
you're gonna be the one that saves me | - back in Chapel Hill May 16th.
And after all			      | Email address remains unchanged
You're my firewall -    	      | ........First in Usenet.........