re eight myths about national health insurance pt ii harelb math cornell edu misc activism progressive co moderator writes f o cus health eight myths about national health insurance pt ii an office visit that s in seattle is in vancouver canada that s because among other things they ve given their government power to bargain with doctors and hospitals over fees the difference in the litigation environment is reflected in the fees lack of defensive medicine and near absence of malpractice is really why we spend less using the most expensive approach of pure insurance in canada along with france and germany without hmo s the nyt has admitted that malpractice insurance fees are an order of magnitude lower in canada but doctors take home pay is almost equal to american doctors also minimal bureaucracy cos the system is so o o simple early march part of the deal for using the all insurance approach like the french and germans do hey why don t they criticize france and germany is it because too many people take french and german in college to make the accusations stick was to preserve the doctors independance since the provincial wings of the cma are the ones that go to bat when the fee schedule hikes are presented the politically bent doctors were just cackling when they realized the cma would grow in strength rather than diminish especially when unopposed unlike in socialized medicine approaches like britain s national health service you ve got to remember you ve got a waiting list as well but it s not as obvious if you re poor and you don t have insurance you don t go to a surgeon in the states you ration by ability to pay for non life threatening things market arguments adequately cover why certain procedures are in scarcer demand i have md friends who can t make a living as specialists back in manitoba not due to the insurance rates but because they won t get enough customers the cma medical monopoly s grip on doctors licencing as in the us aside so they must move to larger places however this does not refute debunking of waiting lines for urgent and routine care as has been done in the u s by consumers reports health policy studies cited by prof dennis e shea on usenet cnn nyt etc doug fierro has posted a nyt article from weeks ago about canada s health insurance approach on talk politics medicine there is one small error in the article not all of our hospitals are private wouldn t national health insurance mean that americans who are now fully insured might have to settle for less in canada provincial insurance covers all health costs except dental care eyeglasses prescription drugs ambulance service and private hospital rooms so many canadians do end up buying some private insurance a policy to cover all of these things runs about to a month of course the one thing to note is that in the canada france germany case private insurance offloaded the basic coverage to the public sector they realized they were keeping low risk high profit extra insurance for things like private semi private rooms vs ward accomodation dental glasses etc for corporate or personal benefits they ll have nothing to do with you if you want to be covered for basic care at that point they wouldn t even consider a voucher approach to broker the universal coverage and sell policies to make up the difference in the federal guidelines and market stuff wouldn t free care encourage people to run to the doctor for every ache and pain people who get free treatment do go to the doctor and hospital about a third more often than those who have to pay a share of their medical bills still canadians who pay nothing at the doctor s have a lower per person health bill than we do it is free in that there are no deductibles nor copayments two things which i advocate to make the canadian insurance look more like real health insurance which actually it is i know that when working in alberta ontario and quebec i was aware that i was paying for health insurance e g in toronto ohip fees were listed on my pay stub manitoba did not collect at paycheque time but only annually at income tax time built into the tax rate only fiscal naifs will proclaim that it s free along with the canadian left for that is part of their brainwashing agenda the french do have copayments though france magazine s summer edition has a fantastic presentation of their basic insurance coverage including a sample chart of copayment percentages for days you re covered for of the public hospital rate afterward with extra private insurance you can get into a private hospital and be covered for any differences beyond the public hospital rate the public insurance covers beyond days or the same cash amount for a private hospital and the difference is paid out of pocket or according to your supplementary private insurance over rds of french have some form of extra private insurance so the other of health costs in europe are out of private funds not gleaned from other taxes the gdp figures are combined public and private expenditures for total outlay using the same methods that yield the figure for the u s isn t the private health insurance industry just too big and powerful to kill dismantling the health segment of our insurance industry would be politically thorny in the quiet words of one advocate for a national plan some firms now sell more than billion in health insurance they d put up a hard fight not only has the industry grown eightfold since canada shut down its own health insurers but our government leaves politicians more open to lobbyists than does canada s parliamentary system health insurance does exist in canada and in western europe its just that it doesn t cover basic care you can opt out in canada and germany but you ll have to go uninsured as a result because there are too few other people that do so i e no market when private insurance realized how much money they d make without the risks involved in basic insurance e g neurosurgery versus deluxe amenities e g having to call granada tv to replace a rental set on the fritz in someone s private hospital room they started to pat themselves on the back for their social responsibility in quebec last spring a consortium of private insurers publicly warned against any thoughts of privatizing routine low cost parts of that province s public health insurance plan gld je me souviens gary l dare gld columbia edu go winnipeg jets go gld cunixc bitnet selanne domi stanley
