This is a false or misleading statement. The reasons for some Canadians having to wait or not being able to have a doctor are different. Canada has had a terrible drain on it's medical system with doctors and nurses going down to the US, because they make more money there. This has lead to new programs to entice them to stay in Canada. It looks like they have been working, but it's a 10 year study and we need to see the numbers.

As a Canadian who has been though the healthcare system in Ontario, and had family members who've had been through health care in Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, Halifax and Newfoundland.Labradour, I can tell you the parts that work and the parts that don't.

I'm a type I diabetic and I've had cancer twice. I've had a sarcoma in my saliva gland and as a result of radiation therapy, I've had melanoma skin cancer crop up on my body as well. I've had four major surgeries on my body. Two of them were serious complicated nervous system surgeries or lymphatic resecctions. I've been through my fair share of Canadian health care.

First things first. It's not a national healthcare. Anyone saying national healthcare doesn't know what they're talking about. The provinces and territories have their own health care. Granted, the territories get a lot more help from the Federal Gov't, but the health needs of people in Ontario are different from those in Manitoba.

Let's get into the brass taxes. I've had the nerve surgery and radiation therapy that was done on my face evaluated at a hospital in West Virgina as part of a study to compare American HC vs. Canadian HC. For my first surgery, I got to choose my doctor, I was given a list. They recommended one doctor, who was an expert in North America for nerve surgery, but he was recovering from a surgery of his own. They suggested I wait for him to be ready, but if I wanted to proceed, I could wait if I wanted.

I waited and surprise, no facial paralysis. I then had to do 30 days of intense radiation therapy in my parotid bed, to make sure they got it all.

I paid a total of $300 dollars in parking. I also have private health insurance for diabetic supplies, which means any medication I had to get to deal with the after effects of radiation had an 85% payback.

Years later when the effects of radiation had settled and I had a tumour form from the radiation, I had gone to my family doctor, saw a specialist the next day and then within the week I had an excision done. It came back positive and within a week of that, I was given a sentinel node biopsy to see if it had spread.

It had.

Within a month of the first examination, I had a full lymphatic ressection of my left leg and groin done. This wasn't as complicated as the facial nerve surgery, so I got a list and a suggestion of who to do the surgery.

That came back clean, but I now deal with a lot of complications from that.

That surgery cost me nothing.

In West Virgina at a hospital (they didn't tell me which one they used.) The total for all the exams (CT, MRI, etc.) the surgery and the radiation therapy came out to $275,000. Give or take.

This is why it drives me nuts when I see people get things wrong about Canada. We have problems, oh yes we do. For example, don't be over the age of 65 in BC or Quebec. The diagnostics training in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland if pretty terrible. But, I got to choose my doctor, and I saw everyone really quick. Why? Because you don't fuck with melanoma.

So, I'm sorry Trancecoach, I saw that video you linked. The guy lost a lot of credibility at "Communist State of Canada." You're already skewing your message to say something. You are just plain wrong about health care in Canada, the way you talk about. I am living proof of how well it works.

I'm a self employed photographer and the most I've ever had to pay was for parking at the hospital. That was the $300 dollars. I paid my taxes and that paid for my health care. If I didn't, and if other Canadians didn't, I would not be here, as with many other Canadians.

Critique us for the things we do shitty, but I have yet to see anyone do that. I see talking points and misinformation from people just spreading false info.

Get your facts straight. I know how it works in Ontario the best. But, I also know for a vast majority of the other country. I can tell you Saskatchewan has had an exodus of nurses, but that's not bad health care system. That's a gov't system that can't keep nurses in the province. If we can keep doctors and nurses, the system works great.

The guy you linked to, most of his sources for data are absolute crap and he misleads a lot of his talking points. This stupid lottery doctor that happened was because it was an isolated town in the wilderness and there was only one doctor left after the other passed away. So yes, he had to do a lottery for people so he wouldn't get swamped, unless it was an emergency. It was a town, I believe about 10,000 people, but I'm not sure on that.

>> ^Bruti79:

The woman he was talking about didn't have a life threatening brain tumour. She had one, and the doctors said it wasn't life threatening. She lived in Kingston, and got a second opinion in Toronto, and then again in Windsor, and they all said, it's not life threatening, it can wait and she got scheduled for 5 months down the road.
When it comes to wait times, getting an MRI in Ontario can be long if it's not threatening. That lady got 4 MRIs in one week. She wanted her surgery right away, so she did that of her own will. I'll find the link, but I hate this lady is being propped up as the reason why Canadian health care doesn't work =P


The CBC had a panel of experts look at her MRIs and, knowing the type of tumour (which was non cancerous by the way, "tumour", sounds bad but it's not always a dire situation) they concluded that the worst possible outcome for her waiting the five months is that she MIGHT begin to lose a little of her vision as the tumour pressed up against her optic nerve. But as soon as she received the surgery her vision would return to normal within days.

On the other hand my dad had some heart problems show up in his annual physical, his doctor referred him to a specialist, they installed a heart monitor which he wore for 24 hours. He was out of the hospital with a new pacemaker before his doctor even got the results of the specialist's tests. The system does work, especially for life threatening cases. It's only in cases where delay of treatment does not threaten life or long term disability that the system moves slowly.

The woman he was talking about didn't have a life threatening brain tumour. She had one, and the doctors said it wasn't life threatening. She lived in Kingston, and got a second opinion in Toronto, and then again in Windsor, and they all said, it's not life threatening, it can wait and she got scheduled for 5 months down the road.

When it comes to wait times, getting an MRI in Ontario can be long if it's not threatening. That lady got 4 MRIs in one week. She wanted her surgery right away, so she did that of her own will. I'll find the link, but I hate this lady is being propped up as the reason why Canadian health care doesn't work =P

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Your claim social medicine would cost 'far far less than they claim' is based on no evidence.

You didn't even bother to read the link, did you? Or did you just decide to ignore it completely and use the "big lie" approach? You know, keep repeating the same bald-faced lie long enough that the gullible start to believe it? That does appear to be one of the three main strategies of the Republican party, after all, along with fear and smear.

My claim, as you call it, is that the cost will be substantially less than the CBO estimates it. That is supported by their record over the last 30 years for EVERY estimate of the costs/savings of Medicare reforms. Three major reforms have occurred, and three times, they've been systemically over-conservative (read that as "wrong") and hugely overestimated the costs and underestimated the savings involved.

That does it...I'm through feeding the troll now. If I want this experience in the future, I've got lots of brick walls I can talk to for the same effect.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Specifically, the plans under discussion have been proven to be of no economic benefit by the CBO.


The CBO has not now, nor ever, "proven" anything, except that they consistently overestimate costs and underestimate savings when it comes to Medicare changes over the last 30 years. Given their atrocious record, -I- wouldn't care to use them as evidence...although I think it pretty safe to say it's likely that costs will be far, far less than they claim.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/opinion/26gabel.html?_r=3&pagewanted
=1

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Single payer is not 'better'. It is not 'cheaper'. It is not 'more fair'. It is simply DIFFERENT. There are strong arguments against it both economically and philosophically. Over 56% of the country doesn't want the public option. Over 86% of the country is satisfied with their medical care. There is no need to go to a different system. Small scale local, municipal, and state organizations can help the people who require assistance beyond their ability to pay. There is no need to swap to a massive government one-size system to account for only a small percentage of the needy.


I know I shouldn't continue to feed the troll, but...

As usual, you ignore the actual published numbers to spout your vague, unsubstantiated claims. The numbers clearly indicate that our current approach -is- distinctly worse, more expensive, and less fair. But you go ahead and keep pushing that insurance industry BS...I'm sure they'll take good care of you when you get something serious.

>> ^entr0py:
This should go without saying, but a string of cherry picked personal anecdotes is meaningless in such debates. Advocates of the public option could just as easily pick out stories of people with private insurance in the US who were denied for coverage or made to wait too long, and repeat those stories endlessly (I'm sure some do). It doesn't get us anywhere, because we're not talking about a system that effects a handful of people, it effects millions, and it can only be accurately judged on that scale.


Which is more or less what Shep said when he questioned it's fairness, which is why it's great.

It's like he totally went around the perceived angle of that story to shed just a little bit of logic on it that Fox news is so sorely lacking.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

>> ^alizarin:
Question for Canadian sifters:
In Canada if you don't want to wait you can go to another area where there's a shorter waiting list correct (next town over or whatever)? The only reason to go to the US is if what you want is just a waste of money that won't do you any good no?


Yeah, most "waiting lists" are in larger metropolitan areas, or in the case of MRIs, the lack of skilled specialists as well as budget constraints. People who go down to the States for medical reasons are mostly wimps those having lower tolerances.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

Well, it can be a bit convoluted but:

1). Yes, if the waiting list is too long, we can go to another hospital. My son needed his tonsils and adenoids removed and the wait list was a year (in Prince George). So we just called up a specialist in Kelowna, and boom he was in, within a week.

2). There are some private clinics that operate outside the government system and work on a pay per use system. The average person doesn't use them, but they are there for who can afford it.

3). At my last job, we had a special broker who handled all of our medical claims. If it meant that we could end up missing work and costing the company money, it was their job to expedite the paperwork and bump us to the front of the list. We got medical attention right away. Not everyone has this but in that case, it was to the benefit of my employer to bare the costs of this agency instead of paying sick pay for us to wait on a waiting list.

4). Also, hospitals, generally, try to be fair, when I had my ACL replaced, the surgeon, himself expedited my surgery date, because I was in danger of re-injuring and causing more damage if I waited too long. The hospital emergency rooms that I know of are working on a two tear level to speed up wait times. (those that need a bed and those that don't. Also, within those groups, they work with a triage mentality where, those that can be patched up quickly, or the very serious will get attention first. The less people waiting the better.

I think a lot of people imagine us standing in hospital line-ups for months, dying out in the cold. That's just not true. Yes, there can be wait lists when the jobs out-man the doctors, but for the most part, if there were more doctors and more equipment, we wouldn't be waiting so long. In Quesnel, where I lived a year ago, the town started their own fundraiser and bought their own MRI Machine, because the government wasn't. Now they have one and the wait times went from traveling out of town to making the appt.


>> ^alizarin:
Question for Canadian sifters:
In Canada if you don't want to wait you can go to another area where there's a shorter waiting list correct (next town over or whatever)? The only reason to go to the US is if what you want is just a waste of money that won't do you any good no?

>> ^alizarin:
Question for Canadian sifters:
In Canada if you don't want to wait you can go to another area where there's a shorter waiting list correct (next town over or whatever)? The only reason to go to the US is if what you want is just a waste of money that won't do you any good no?


Dude probably wanted to get some shopping done after surgery. Everyone heads down to Buffalo for cheap clothes.

>> ^Psychologic:
^ Lou Dobbs is on CNN (or is he on both?).
I'm glad Fox has Shep, and they should be rewarded for such (preferably with higher ratings on his segment). Fox just follows the ratings. If Glenn Beck gets viewers and advertisers then he stays... if he becomes unprofitable then he goes.
In my imaginary little world people would prefer actual investigations over one-sided attacks, but I know that isn't realistic. =\


Fox does NOT just follow ratings. Fox follows Murdoch's political views, and actively focuses only on the stories that promote those views. Not only do they present a biased selection of stories, they will distort and flat-out lie to support those views. They even go so far as to fire anyone who refuses to report those lies...and have a court decision saying that's legal (another piece of evidence that "legal" doesn't mean "right" or "ethical").

They are in no way a news organization...they're nothing more than a propaganda machine.

>> ^schlub:
Yeah, Canada has waiting times and other issues, but, you know what? If I need to see my doctor because of some issue, I walk in to the office do what needs to be done, then walk out. I don't get a bill. I need an MRI? Yeah, I have to wait, but it doesn't cost me anything. Need an X-ray, blood tests, flu shot, hospital stay, my wife has a baby and gets a c-section, is in hospital for 3 or 4 days,.. yeah, we still don't have to pay a bill.
The system's not perfect (and needs work), but not having to fork over cash for every visit is pretty sweet and usually makes up for many of the short-comings.


Amen. It has it's problems but is way ahead of a pay-for system like that in the States.

I love how these Fox reports are often devoid of tangible facts. So a lady was told she is too heavy for a hip replacement? Doesn't surprise me. For all we know she is a 600 lb fatty and the real story is that she was told she needs to lose weight before such surgery is practical.

I wouldn't trade the system we have in Canada for what is had in the US. Not a chance.