Phlegm addled DUmmy raves about the Canadian health care system

[Ralph Wiggum]

snot (10,788 posts)
Sun Dec 22, 2024, 02:14 PM
103
Recommend
The best health care system in the world
If you set out to design the most complicated, inefficient, ineffective, frustrating, back-*ssed health care system possible, you could not do better than the current US system.

It is effectively designed by, for, and to serve insurance companies, Big Pharma, and middlemen, to funnel a river of taxpayer dollars to insurance and drug cos. while ensuring that the smallest possible amount gets spent on actual care and the ins. cos. et al. charge all they can get away with (which is a lot, since most people prefer health to sickness and death) and otherwise do all they can to deny and delay benefits while imposing admin requirements that either afford additional fee-extraction opportunities or impose massive, externalized man-hour costs on patients, their families, and employers and on doctors and other actual providers of care (not to mention worry, stress, and poorer health).

Our system ensures that there is little or no rhyme or reason as to who gets insurance and what kind; if you live in one state, you may be able to afford insurance; if you live in another state, you may not, or may have to sell or give away your home in order to qualify for Medicaid; and the variations in the kinds of costs of insurance depending on where you live and who you are or aren’t employed by are equally random from the point of view of everyone except the insurers who get to define them.

The goal of those who get to define them is, of course, to extract as much value from the system as possible without actually getting convicted of a crime; and even if a company gets convicted, of course, the executives responsible usually walk away unscathed and on to their next job.

Meanwhile, millions of patients, employers, and providers spend countless hours per year re-evaluating the ever-changing landscape of available plans to decide which ones they’ll purchase or participate in and then applying for them, filing claims and appealing, if they don’t simply give up on it all. (Moreover, in order to apply for Obamacare, you must give up a fair amount of private info; and in order to receive care at all, you must give up a fair amount of private info to gawd knows how many providers and intermediaries – my own info has been on the dark web for years, not because I clicked on something I shouldn't but because those who required the info failed to keep it safe – here again, more uncompensated time, effort, and costs imposted on patients.)

Even after you’ve done your research and selected a plan that you think will cover your needs for the year, committing to it for the next year, the insurer can unilaterally change what it will cover at the drop of a hat. Drugs they said were covered are no longer covered (and in the US, without insurance, you can expect sky-high prices for them); doctors they said were in-network drop out as soon as they can afford to do so; and I’m not sure what other coverages they’re entitled to change at will, while you have no power to switch plans until the year is up.

This system in which concern for profits preempts all others is also destroying the quality of what care we do manage to receive. Doctors, having seen their patients’ claims denied by insurers under an ever-expanding list of pretexts, learn to record in their notes an ever-expanding list of whatever criteria ins. cos. devise. I appreciate the value of records and checklists and don’t mean to suggest they should be discarded altogether, but between these pressures and the challenges of making a living while bearing all the admin costs imposed by our system, it’s to the point that doctors often rush through appointments, barely glancing at their patients, their eyes glued instead to their computers as they check long lists of boxes and cut-and-paste the required language into forms – then exiting as quickly as possible, leaving patients with questions for which they must make additional appointments in order to obtain answers – creating additional burdens and/or costs.

A continual escalation in box-checking and magic-language-repeating requirements imposed by insurers ensures continuing denials and delays in benefit payments and does little to deter fraud, since fraudsters learn at least as quickly as anyone else what boxes to check and what magic language to use.

The system is so onerous that some of the best or most talented doctors or potential doctors either decide to choose other careers, retire early, or charge extra “concierge” fees for their services in order to be able to provide decent, non-rushed care.

There are a great many other aspects of the US health care system that are serious f*cked, and I won’t go into them all; but I think it’s important to at least note in passing that leaving pharmaceutical development and testing in the hands of Big Pharma, together with the endemic revolving-door and other kinds of regulatory capture that we currently allow of the FDA and the CDC as well as other governmental regulatory agencies, have on many occasions resulted in serious harm to patients. One result, of course, is that new drugs or treatments are not always properly tested before they’re allowed into the market, effectively making patients Big Pharma’s unwitting guinea pigs; another is that new drugs or treatments that are unlikely to be profitable aren’t developed at all.

And meanwhile, of course, we have the most expensive system and worst life expectencies of any developed nation in the world.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Canada's health care system, e.g., like those of many other developed nations, is universal, free, and was recently designated by the World Health Organization as the best in the world. We could just copy it, but for our lack of political will.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219843031

[SVPete]

Yeah, right! I learned recently about the comparative availability - Canada vs. US - of a significant diagnostic tool, MRI units. This color-coded map gives 2022 data from WHO, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/magnetic-resonance-imaging-mri-units-availability . One country in the world for which WHO has data has more MRI units per capita than the US. It isn't Canada, and it isn't in EuroLand. The US had, in 2022, 40.1 MRI units per million people; Japan had 55.3 MRI units per million people.

In western EuroLand, only Portugal had fewer MRI units per million people than Canada. In South America (WHO did not have data for Argentina or Brazil), Chile had more MRI units per million people than Canada.

Canada had, in 2022, 10.3 MRI units per million people, slightly more than 1/4 as many as the US.

Another significant diagnostic tool, CT scanners, https://www.statista.com/statistics/266539/distribution-of-equipment-for-computer-tomography/ :

US has 42.63 per million people, 6th in the world behind Japan, Australia, Greece, Iceland, and Denmark. Canada has 14.6 per million people, 27th in the world.

The units per million people numbers don't tell the full story. Canada is the second largest country in the world, and its population density is far from homogeneous. There are a few provinces/territories that probably have more moose and/or salmon or trout than humans (Nunavut might have more polar bears and seals than humans!). The availability of medical care in southern Quebec or Ontario is very different from that of pretty much any part of the Yukon or Northwest Territories, or Nunavut, and still significantly better than in the Maritime or Prairie Provinces.

And still, despite having the best availability in most of Canada, residents of southern Quebec and Ontario cross into the US for some diagnostic and surgical procedures because of long delays for receiving those procedures (delay = more pain, worse disease progression, and sometimes even death).

[Old n Grumpy]

The grass is always greener, he deserves some cheese to go with his whine.

I thought obama care fixed that and saved everyone $2,500.00 a year

[FlippyDoo]

I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t read through all of that. I realize that I can sometimes ramble and post long screeds myself, but at least I try (maybe not always successfully) to stick some entertainment along the way.

Anyway, from the first few sentences, the last sentences, and the standard DU M.O., I assume the DUmmie is putting down our medical system compared to the wonderful socialist systems of the world. I’m not a healthcare specialist so I can’t say for sure, but it seems to me that in the past, although our system does have issues that could be better, folks from around the world (if they can afford to do so) usually seem to come here for their medical care. Has that changed? If it is still the case, why would people come to our DU declared “terrible” system instead of staying where their is a “wonderful” socialist system?

[67 Rover]

Why is it that Canadian MP's come to Massachusetts (NEBH) for surgery then? 

[Old n Grumpy]

You should go to Cuba they have an excellent climate, free education and free healthcare. They have an asprin and band aid for every 1000 people.

[SVPete]

Canada's health care system, e.g., like those of many other developed nations, is universal 1., free 2., and was recently designated by the World Health Organization 3. as the best in the world.

1. "Universal"? Tell that to the residents of the NWT or Nunavut who have to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to get the quality of healthcare available in Toronto or Vancouver. And then tell that to the residents of, e.g., Toronto or Vancouver who travel into the US to get the kind of prompt healthcare available to ordinary US residents.

2. "Free"? Be honest! The costs of healthcare available to Canadians is just hidden in its tax system.

3. WHO has a credibility problem. WHO still hasn't admitted being China's running dog messenger in concealing from the world for weeks that China knew Covid was transmissible between humans. Those weeks of concealment were weeks in which countries outside of China could not know to respond with proper urgency. F WHO!