re eight myths about national health insurance pt ii in article apr news columbia edu gld cunixb cc columbia edu gary l dare writes 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 then why do we really need national health insurance then wouldn t it just make more sense to find some way to cut down on the cost of malpractice insurance and maybe that s not such a good thing i also read somewhere that it is next to impossible in canada to litigate against the health system class action suits are nearly impossible and you can t sue the provincial health officials at all 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 oh no don t let the ama know about this they have enough power as it is ask most americans whether they d like the doctors lobby to get more powerful 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 well yeah tell us about the national defense medical centre outside ottawa theoretically it s limited to service personnel but some studies i ve heard about have suggested that about half the patients there are civilians who not only have connections but aren t urgent at all the problem is in a system where hospitals annual budgets are approved by the government how do you keep political considerations out of medical decisions i bet that if you re an mp or mpp or good friends with one you re put on any hospital s urgent care list no matter how minor your problem which is ok unless you re someone who gets bumped off the list for some bigshot 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 hmm how much difference would it make in the figure of percentage of gnp spent on health care if dentistry and optometry were included in the accounting maybe canada spends proportionately just as much on health care as we do 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 so what happens if the health care systems financially collapse bob rae the second least popular man in ontario warned ontarians a few years ago that if they didn t stop cross border shopping in such huge numbers the services they expect from the province just won t be there in a few years fortunately for them and less fortunately for the retailers here in western new york the canadian dollar went back to a more realistic value he didn t say so but i knew he meant the ohip what would happen if his warning turned out to be the truth would the private insurers take up the slack they d be under no obligation to of course they could eventually make money again but if what you say is true they d be loathe to do so and out of practice in handling such basic services too 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 would that it were free americans would start another revolution if they had to pay taxes at canadian rates 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 again i doubt americans would like giving the insurance companies that much power i half wonder if the canadian health insurers didn t go along with the provinces and the federal government years ago because they knew that there was a good chance of the public system going bust in the long run and then afterwards they could clean up okay this sort of contradicts what i said higher up but it s another possibility they d have an added bonus when arguing against government involvement in their industry as they could then point to its failure instead of just citing theoretical principles
