Quote:
Originally posted by greatwhitenorthchick
The Canadian healthcare system is in serious trouble. My mother could not get a doctor for 3 years (!) and she lives 2h from Toronto - not exactly remote. She had to go to walk-in clinics for that whole time and she is 65 - not exactly a good age to not have your own doctor. My dad has Parkinson's - he has his own doctor, but he has to wait forever to see specialists. Waiting lists for routine operations are huge.
The only good thing about the system is that everyone is covered - maybe that outweighs the bad things, but not really for those that can afford to pay for something better (and don't want to travel to the US for it).
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Not to diminish the point, but every health care system is in trouble, and to some extent it's a pick your poison world out there. In the US, a disproportionate amount of healthcare is doled out in emergency rooms, which are not necessarily the place to get the best care or the most efficient care. Much of that is because of how the payor system works and because of the regulatory environment.
The question for the US is, are we ready to experiment with approaches that strengthen the weakest elements of our system, and learn from some other countries? Or are we ready to say the benefits of our system (including the fact that we create a disproportionate share of the breakthrough science and technology in the medical world) are such that we don't want to try anything new that might affect those benefits? It is a tough question.
My view: I have little patience for and see few contributions to healthcare from the payor side of the healthcare industry, and see no reason not to radically reshape that side. I think the charitable/educational healthcare system has been radically outperforming the for-profit healthcare system, and would generally push policy to favor the better performing charitable institutions.
Does this lead to single payor? Perhaps. I'm not dismissing it. But it could just as easily lead to a differently regulated multi-payor system or a system where the providers take on some of the payor responsibilities. If we had anyone in government ready to take on the issue.
