RoR: Forum

Steve Wolfer posted this in "Doctors on Strike for Freedom in Medicine" in post #15

Post 1

Monday, July 27, 2009 - 8:00pm

Oops! Thanks, Sam.

- Bill

Post 2

Monday, July 27, 2009 - 8:39pm

It is worth being show-cased here - with a thread of it's own.

Post 3

Monday, July 27, 2009 - 11:54pm

I posted it, because I thought it was just a great video, very well done, along the lines of a John Stossel piece. Boy, if this doesn't get the proponents of universal health care thinking, I can't imagine what would. Did you catch John Edwards comment about taking away your health care if universal health care wasn't enacted by July of 2009?

- Bill

Post 4

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - 7:49am

Several years ago (I think it was on RoR) that the book, "Noble Vision" was recommended. I bought it and, indeed, it is a wonderful novel in the Rand tradition. It exposes the defects and contradictions in the Canadian health system.

Product Description
What happens to independent thought in a socialized health system? This question is superimposed on the action in NOBLE VISION, a gripping love story between Nicole Hudson, a tragically injured ballerina, and Dr. David Lang, an innovative neurosurgeon who is determined to save her with a revolutionary new treatment that is prohibited by the state. Romantic thriller with philosophical depth.

I recommend it.

Sam

Post 5

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - 11:03am

Here's a video from the Heritage Foundation with a knowledgeable woman who is an expert on health care issues. She's from Canada but is now a US citizen. The clip is about 57 minutes long and the Canadian content starts at about the 18 minute mark and continues for about 9 minutes on that topic. After that she proposes solutions. Although her premise is that Universal (Government) Health Care is desirable, she is articulate and presents the case against the Canadian system very well. I didn't listen to all her solutions.

It's worth listening to and it will dispel any illusions about the efficacy of the Canadian system.

Sam

Post 6

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - 2:05pm

Sam, thanks for posting that video from Heritage Foundation. Sally Pipes is correct. There is going to be little pressure for health care providers to reduce costs as long the patients/insureds have so little economic interest in how much is paid. They don't care when third parties are paying, like the article written by John Stossel and posted by Bill Dwyer says. If employees were to pay insurance premiums from their own wages, the pressure would greatly increase. The key to bringing costs down radically is to get employers out of providing health insurance.

Post 7

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - 5:18pm

Great video, Sam. I really enjoyed it.

I was amazed by the story of a woman pregnant with multiples in an area of two million in Canada, but no facility to handle her care! But a cow town of 55,000 in Montana? No problem.

Just amazing. She really shed a whole new light on the subject for me. Thanks again.

Post 8

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - 8:49pm

This happened a long time ago when I was living in Canada and my facts may not be 100% accurate. It was probably in the late '80's or early '90's when CAT scanners were pretty new. There were only perhaps 3 scanners in the whole of Canada while there were probably hundreds in the US. Several doctors in Calgary tried to set up a scanning clinic outside the Canadian Health System so that wealthy patients could get timely service. They were prevented from doing so even though it would relieve the demand from all levels of society and save the system oodles of money. The ideology was that no one should be able to get more timely or better health care in Canada than anyone else. The result was that poor (and middle income) people had less health care than otherwise � which was surely contrary to the high ideals of the "system." This is E-V-I-L.

Sam

Post 9

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - 11:51pm

Sam,

About Sally Pipes, you wrote, "Although her premise is that Universal (Government) Health Care is desirable, she is articulate and presents the case against the Canadian system very well. I didn't listen to all her solutions."

This is incorrect. Sally's premise is not that universal (government) health care is desirable. Quite the contrary. She favors a free-market based health care system. In fact, she says so explicitly near the beginning of her talk. She's the president of the Pacific Research Institute, a well-known free-market think tank.

- Bill

Post 10

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 5:53am

I stand corrected.

Sam

Post 11

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 7:09am

With regard to my post #8 ... there appears to be many private scanning services in Canada now. I've been out of touch with recent developments.

Canada's Private Clinics Surge as Public System Falters

Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years before receiving treatment.

The country's publicly financed health insurance system � frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity � is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.

"We've taken the position that the law is illegal," Dr. Day, 59, says. "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."

Canada remains the only industrialized country that outlaws privately financed purchases of core medical services. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other politicians remain reluctant to openly propose sweeping changes even though costs for the national and provincial governments are exploding and some cancer patients are waiting months for diagnostic tests and treatment.

Sam

(Edited by Sam Erica on 7/29, 7:16am)

Post 12

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 7:28am

http://special.pacificresearch.org/press/2009/healthcare-impact.html

This is a page with several more media items about health care. Note the name is 'Pacific Reseach Institute' (like Bill wrote). There is at least one other different organization called 'Pacific Institute'.

Post 13

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 11:13am

Just watched the video and its horrifying. It's no surprise you'd have black market health care. Greece also has socialized medicine. My relatives there "tip" their doctors in an effort to get faster and better care, such as getting tests done more rapidly. Even though "tipping" doctors is illegal, it's rampant and almost expected. My parents have also flown several of my relatives to get them badly needed surgeries that they couldn't get or had to wait too long to get in Greece. The possibility that we are heading towards this is outright depressing.

Ugh, I need a drink.

Post 14

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 8:26pm

Speaking of Greek Health Care

I received some health care in Greece back in 1997. It was ... um ... different than health care here. While climbing over a metal fence, my thigh got snagged (skewered) on a rusty metal spike. It didn't hurt (much), but I knew I could die without a tetanus shot and some stitches. I went to the clinic in town. It was almost 5pm. The doctor said he closes at 5pm so he can't treat me, but that he would help me -- by giving me directions to the next town 20 miles away (which stayed open later than he did).

I hopped on my scooter -- that's what you drive in Greece, a scooter -- and I rode to the next town, driving as fast as the scooter would take me, while my leg bled through a towel which I had wrapped around it as tight as I could. I was a little scared that I might get 'woozy' and pass out from loss of blood, while flying down the road on the scooter -- but the bleeding was slow and I thought I would still be able to get the shot in time and stay alive (as long as the scooter didn't get a flat tire or something).

I got to the next town. I limped into the clinic and took a seat. There was no receptionist or nurse or whatever. No one else was there. Then a little boy (about 7 or 8 years old) came out of the back. He was alone and very curious about the bloody towel wrapped around my thigh. He stared at the blood with inquisitive wonder. I felt like I was part of a circus show or something. I wondered why the boy was there. His curiosity was so focused that it wasn't normal even for a boy his age.

The boy went back into the back room and then the doctor came out of the same door.

I told him what had happened to my leg and he nodded that he had supplies of the tetanus vaccine and he grabbed it from a shelf. He drew the vaccine out of a vial with a syringe and then tried to squirt the syringe just a little in order to blow out the air.

As he tried, the syringe needle fell off the syringe (it wasn't screwed on tight).

His polite smile about that, and his "Oh, I guess I should've tightened the needle" comment, did not, however, dispel the new sense of fear I had that I was getting 3rd-world medical treatment (or what seemed 3rd-world to me). I couldn't leave to find a doctor who remembers to screw the needles on the syringe -- because there wasn't time. In less than an hour, all the clinics would be closed. Besides, I thought, after being embarrassed about the syringe, he would surely not treat me haphazardly.

Then it was time for the stitches.

I was lying face-down on the "operating table." It was the back-side of my thigh that had gotten punctured. I felt him cleaning the wound. Even after what I believe was a shot of novocaine (or other anesthetic), I could feel the stitches going in and tugging on my skin. All seemed to be going well.

Then I heard the doctor yell (in Greek) at the boy.

I thought I had noticed the boy in the room, but simply thought to myself: Well, it's probably the doctor's son and he's probably showing his kid what he does in case the kid wants to grow up to become a doctor, too. But then the doctor appeared to be lecturing the boy. While the doctor was talking, there'd be no tugging on my skin. As the tugging started up again, the doctor would make short comments which seemed like verbal coaching.

This 8 year-old was stitching up my leg!

Well, at least that's where my mind went. I'll never know, but the rough, raised scar on the back of my thigh makes me think that an amateur stitched me up. The moral of the story is to never get sick or hurt in a country with socialized medicine. Obama may soon make that less possible for us. I wish he'd skewer his own leg on a rusty spike in a poor, socialized country at the wrong time (when all the clinics are closing)!

:-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/29, 10:28pm)

Post 15

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 8:52pm

LOL, sorry don't mean to laugh at the situation you had there Ed. That pretty much sounds right. And you're right about it being third world medical care, because it basically is. (Just curious which part of Greece were you in?) Which is sad considering almost every other industry that has been privatized in Greece in the past 20 years have seen tremendous growth. But all of these European nations just single out health care as the one industry they won't allow not even a semblance of a free market. It's the classic case of being too concrete bound, they can't make the connection why every citizen in Greece now has a cell phone but getting a tetanus shot is a major hassle.

Post 16

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 9:17pm

I think it is just the taxes. Politicians just want the taxes - and the money/power it brings - so they can all be populists. We're all drawing down to a Chavez-styled world, and that sucks!

Oops,... sorry, my pessimist got out. I try to contain him the best I can...

jt

Post 17

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - 11:10pm

John,

I was back-packing through Western Europe. My first stop in Greece was in Athens, in order to visit the Acropolis (where objective thought began). A popular touring manual suggested that I visit the Greek islands. Two of them grabbed my attention, Santorini and Corfu. I picked the wrong one first. While at Corfu, I stayed at the Pink Palace, run by George -- George owns part of the island (note: and every third guy in Greece is named "George"; what's up with that, John??).

Anyway, I stayed until my money ran out -- and my buddy, who had promised to back me up with more money, also "ran out" on me (off to Turkey with some gal). Anyway, I can't tell you how I got out of there because it is illegal to work in a foreign ... er ... I mean ... after a few months, I was able to leave. Yeah, that's it.

Anyway, I was forced to stay on a beautiful Greek island waking up to the waves of the Mediterranean sea and going to bed under a veritable sea of a gazillion stars in the sky which I never even knew existed -- for several, several weeks. I can't say it was for several months because the passport visa in Greece is only for 3 months and, if you stay longer than that, customs might nab you as you try to leave with your over-extended passport -- unless the customs officials don't even bother to look at your passport as they stamp it, because they work for a socialist country which rewards laziness and indifference (not that that necessarily happened to me or anything).

The first clinic I went to was in the beachfront of Agios Georgios. That's the doctor who had my medical interests at heart when he took some of his time to tell me how to drive -- while bleeding and likely infected with a potentially-fatal pathogen -- to the next town 20 miles away (Sinarades?). Did I mention that he warned me to "hurry" (because they were closing soon, too)? Anyway, it's that second town where the needles come off the syringe and where the doctor's kid sews you back up -- while his dad is yelling at him to stay the hell away from the femoral artery or whatever.

:-)

Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/29, 11:14pm)

Post 18

Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 12:57am

An old friend of mine from high school has recently reported that she has been given a 6 month wait for an MRI up in Canada. Apparently periodic crushing body pain combined with random loss of motor control in the exremeties wouldn't indicate the kind of thing that can spiral out of control in half a year. She recently reported that she found "the right person" to complain to and they moved her to the front of the line. However, I haven't noticed a decrease in her "I'm in terrible pain" updates, and there haven't been any "My doctor is trying X to cure me" posts. It wasn't particularly well received when I suggested taking a vacation home and walking into any ER, as during the course of my school clinicals I've seen legions of people walk in and get advanced diagnostics.

Post 19

Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 3:08pm