The subject of my banter today is healthcare. As I have written many times before, the United States is the only G7 nation, without national medicine, some thing of which I am proud. We are also, by the way, the only nation on earth with real aircraft carriers. (The Russians and the Brits can't figure out how to make one without a ramp).
Anyway, as I become further enmeshed in my attempt to become a doctor, I hear more and more cries of "Why can't the government just provide health care?"
The proper response is, "Because according to our constitution, they are not supposed to", but unfortunately the constitution doesn't bear much weight in today's consumeristic world. So, one must deal with reality. Here it is:
If you are one who thinks the government should provide health care, I suggest you visit Canada, our neighbor to the north. In Canada, everyone has health care; everyone that is, except those who truly need it.
According to the Canadian government's own figures, the current wait time for cardiac surgery is 10.4 weeks. http://www.healthservices.gov.bc.ca/waitlist/cardiac.html
Imagine you have been having chest pain. So you pop off to the local clinic and see a doctor. He runs a few tests and discovers that you have an abnormal arrythmia or there seems to be some difficulty with your heart. He smiles, gives you a lollipop and enters your name on a waiting list. If you do not die of a heart attack over the next 3 1/2 months, you will get heart surgery.
What if you needed an organ transplant? As of November 3, 2005, there were 368 patients in one province awaiting transplant. To date, 40 of them have received their transplant. Now, I will give you that some are awaiting organs that haven't arrived yet, but this is only 10% of the group. Is that the kind of healthcare you want?
How about Neurosurgery? For patients who "in the opinion of the physician, the individual's health may be significantly compromised if the procedure is not performed within about two weeks of submitting the booking form to the hospital." Their average wait time was 6.8 days. Can you imagine knowing that you need emergency brain surgery and having to wait at least a week to get it?
"In 1999, Dr. Richard F. Davies, a cardiologist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, described in remarks for the Canadian Institute for Health Information how delays affected Ontario heart patients scheduled for coronary artery bypass graft surgery. In a single year, for this one operation, the doctor said, "71 Ontario patients died before surgery, 121 were removed from the list permanently because they had become medically unfit for surgery," and 44 left the province to have the surgery, many having gone to the United States for the operation. (According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, 33 Canadian hospitals performed approximately 22,500 bypass surgeries in 1998-99.)
In other words, 192 people either died or became too sick to have surgery before they could work their way to the front of the line." http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=15524
But! everyone says, "It's Free!" Are Americans really that lazy or stupid? Does anyone seriously believe that providing any sort of medical care is free - or even should be?
According to the Canadian governments own figures (Which, like ours must be suspect) 40 % of total government spending in Canada goes toward this system. (They do not have an aircraft carrier). Consider this against our incredibly inefficient and bureaucratic Social Security system which takes 4.3% of our governments expenditures.
I am willing to admit that there is one good aspect of the Canadian System - it is a single payer, Universal system. In America at least 40 million of us do not have any form of health insurance. But this isn't something to be solved by our government - it should be solved the American way - by ingenious, thrifty and entrepeneurial people.
Next issue - the Solution!
