Paul Krugman "death panels"

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Canada has a Single Payer system and has a similar number of acute care hospital beds and hospital discharges as the United States (per thousand people). And they still pay less than the US for that. ( source: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media ... ntl_ib.pdf )

Currently the U.S. has the worst of both worlds. Inefficient management of medical services (mostly government induced) and shorting the public through less than ethical insurance schemata. At least in Europe and in Canada they have cut out a lot of the paper work (and thereby lowered expenses) but rationing is still the order of the day.

ruveyn

Food for thought.

In any state-sponsored medical scheme, there must be "death panels."

Simple fact, you can not justify providing medical care to everyone, for everything, all the time. For every person, there is a question of if the medical care is essential for prolonging their life and/or eliminating suffering. At some point, the only thing medical science can do is prolong your existence for a little while longer...and at great expense.

No person has a right to expect someone else to fork out their money to buy them another 6-8 months to live just because it is medically possible to do so.

Hence, there will be a need for a review panel to decide if the patient is "deserving" of the care being asked for.

In a private medical scheme, if you can afford a procedure, even if the benefit is dubious at best, you can have it. Yeah, the poor get shafted, but you know what....life isn't fair....and handing it over to government control is not going to make it fair...it will just ensure the "common people" are all mistreated equally.

This would also be true for a public scheme, in the same manner that plastic surgery would still be available. There will always be the freedom to pay out of pocket for unnecessary or slim benefit margin procedures.

There is no inefficient management of medical services induced by the government. Medicare administrative overhead costs are in the range of 3 percent while private companies administrative overhead costs vary from 5% to 40% of the premiums depending on the size of the firm.

source: http://institute.ourfuture.org/files/Ja ... Choice.pdf and

Cathy Schoen, et al., “Building Blocks for Reform: Achieving Universal Coverage With Private And Public Group Health Insurance,” Health Affairs, Volume 27, No. 3, May/June 2008, 647.

Not so. In Canada, you can't see a private doctor and pay for services unless (IIRC) it's a service the public scheme does not provide for. Government wants a monopoly on service and service providers. Want to be seen today for a procedure because you can afford to pay or government feels you don't need it and another doctor is legally barred from providing it to you.

The insurance companies that now control medical care in the USA regularly refuse vital treatment to insured people on the basis of trumped up regulations to free them for being responsible for providing treatment so that they can increase their profits. Their death panels have been functioning for years and people have been dying to make them rich.

At least in the US the wait to see a doctor is usually due to the doctor seeing someone else whom got there before you or had an appointment before you.

@ Wedge

I wouldn't put much stock in that article, the mainstream media or whatever may tout it, but in practice Government Run Health Care DOES NOT WORK.

Also why is the person and the organization she with affiliated with George Soros?

I thought you were talking about procedures that the government might deem unnecessary and might not pay for in which case, you certainly would be free to pay for it on your own. Either way, one would still be able to get whatever service they choose, if they have the means and a willing doctor.

He's talking about both, and quite frankly I highly doubt the ones making the decisions will actually even have medical degrees nor would they be remotely qualified to make the decisions that they would be making entirely on how much a proceedure costs.

This one's for you, Inuyasha

J Stew takes on George Soros

*shrug

Don't get the joke but I'm sure some people would, and also I think Beck would find it amusing since he pokes fun at himself a lot.

To be clear, as I understand the Canadian system....

If the heath system provides for a procedure and it deems you cannot have it or must wait for it, you CAN NOT go to another doctor in Canada and pay for the procedure. Canada controls all doctors and short of a doctor providing services for stuff the public system DOES NOT provide for (elective procedures), no doctor can compete with the public program. So, you need a surgery but don't want to wait 6 months, you have to leave Canada to find a doctor who can do it sooner. If Canada says you can't have it, but it's something they provide for...again, you must leave Canada because no Canadian doctor is allowed to compete with the public system.

Well, my data didn't come exactly from mainstream media but from a peer-reviewed article in a journal specialised in health policy. You say that government run health care does not work. There is another article in the same journal ( http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/co ... .311v1/DC1 ) in which the author quotes past surveys that found higher degree of satisfaction among Medicare beneficiaries compared with privately insured working families and better experiencies for people covered by Medicare (ages 65-70) than people not covered (ages 50-64). The author himself compared satisfaction of Medicare beneficiaries with the experiences of people under sixty-five insured through private employer sponsored insurance. He found that after differences of income, health status, and drug coverage respondents insured through the two public programs (Medicare and Medicaid) were found to be more satisfied with their insurance than those with employed coverage. According to the study the respondants of public insurance programs also were less likely to report negative experiences with the program (which included that the plan did not pay for a given medical service, that it only paid for part of the medical bill). Also Medicare beneficiaries in the survey had less problems like avoiding filling a prescription, not getting needed specialist care, skipping recommended tests or follow-up care, or having medical problems but not visiting a doctor or clinic because of cost.

You are generally correct, but I will put in a few caveats:

1) The system (at least in my province) does not have an up/down decision process, except for experimental procedures. If a qualified physican states that a procedure that is covered by medicare is medically necessary, then it is medically necessary.

2) Wait lists are managed by hospitals, clinics and physicians. The province has no means to interfere with patient scheduling.

3) There are a wide range of medically necessary procedures that are not covered by medicare. The largest group of these are workplace injuries covered by worker's compensation. Private payment is perfectly acceptable for these procedures.

4) An increasing number of clinics are springing up who are deliverately and expressly performing private payment procedures for cases that would be covered by medicare.

5) Most physicians in Canada practicing outside hospital settings are private entities. Private doctors don't 'compete' with the public system--they are the service delivery mechanism of that system. Rather, we cannot accept payment from a source other than the public system for services that that system covers. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one.

6) The Courts have increasingly found that excessive wait times will compromise a persons right to security of the person under section 7. In at least one province (Québec), there is clear judicial authority to seek out private pay services where the RAMQ cannot meet the patient's need within a reasonable timeframe.

@ Wedge

Just cause they are less likely to report it doesn't mean something didn't happen. Many doctors refuse to take medicare and those on medicare are usually people that are either elderly or people that have no idea whether or not they are being screwed over.

@ visagrunt

You left out the fact a lot of Canadian Doctors have quit their practices in Canada and moved to the US.