Escape to Montana: Canadians seek a private option.

[Zoom-boing]

A bipartisan majority of the Senate Finance Committee defeated the health-care "public option" yesterday, though in our view Max Baucus's bill will still reach the same destination, albeit more slowly. With that in mind, we offer as today's commentary a cautionary tale from the land of the original public option, Canada. Here are the opening paragraphs of Sunday's Los Angeles Times dispatch:

When the pain in Christina Woodkey's legs became so severe that she could no longer hike or cross-country ski, she went to her local health clinic. The Calgary, Canada, resident was told she'd need to see a hip specialist. Because the problem was not life-threatening, however, she'd have to wait about a year.

So wait she did.

In January, the hip doctor told her that a narrowing of the spine was compressing her nerves and causing the pain. She needed a back specialist. The appointment was set for Sept. 30. 'When I was given that date, I asked when could I expect to have surgery,' said Woodkey, 72. 'They said it would be a year and a half after I had seen this doctor.'

So this month, she drove across the border into Montana and got the $50,000 surgery done in two days. 'I don't have insurance. We're not allowed to have private health insurance in Canada,' Woodkey said. 'It's not going to be easy to come up with the money. But I'm happy to say the pain is almost all gone.'

Whereas U.S. healthcare is predominantly a private system paid for by private insurers, things in Canada tend toward the other end of the spectrum: A universal, government-funded health system is only beginning to flirt with private-sector medicine.

Hoping to capitalize on patients who might otherwise go to the U.S. for speedier care, a network of technically illegal private clinics and surgical centers has sprung up in British Columbia, echoing a trend in Quebec. In October, the courts will be asked to decide whether the budding system should be sanctioned. More than 70 private health providers in British Columbia now schedule simple surgeries and tests such as MRIs with waits as short as a week or two, compared with the months it takes for a public surgical suite to become available for nonessential operations.

'What we have in Canada is access to a government, state-mandated wait list,' said Brian Day, a former Canadian Medical Assn. director who runs a private surgical center in Vancouver. 'You cannot force a citizen in a free and democratic society to simply wait for healthcare, and outlaw their ability to extricate themselves from a wait list.'"

In other words, while Congress debates whether to set U.S. medicine on the Canadian path, Canadians are desperately seeking their own private option. At least Ms. Woodkey had the safety valve of Montana and private American medicine. Once Congress passes a form of Medicare for all, with its inevitable government price controls and limits on care, Americans might not be so lucky.

Let's hope that by then Canada has expanded its own private option, so Americans will one day be able to visit Alberta for faster, better care. Unless Congress bars that too.

Canada Considers Private Health Care Options - WSJ.com

 

[Toro]

This is true. My father has had a neurological condition that was not life-threatening but painful. He had to wait nearly a year to see a neurologist.

Canada does a good job at providing timely emergency care but a mediocre to poor job providing elective care.

 

[Old Rocks]

And Japan does a far better job at both than we do here in the US.

 

[KittenKoder]

And Japan does a far better job at both than we do here in the US.

Yet you fail to see all the difference between the US and Japan ...

 

[Old Rocks]

Oh, I see the differance all right. They live longer, healthier lives, and don't go bankrupt because of medical bills. Their children are healthier and better educated. And, in spite of coming out of WW2 in poverty, they now are wealthy, in some ways, more wealthy than the average American citizen.

 

[Oddball]

Then move the fuck to Canada, nutsack.

 

[Big Black Dog]

Then move the fuck to Canada, nutsack.

Great idea. If you don't like it here just get the hell out. All your problems will be solved.

 

[Oddball]

Then move the fuck to Canada, nutsack.

Great idea. If you don't like it here just get the hell out. All your problems will be solved.

My *ahem* option solves their problem.

Maybe socialized medicine isn't what they really want in the end.

 

[KittenKoder]

Oh, I see the differance all right. They live longer, healthier lives, and don't go bankrupt because of medical bills. Their children are healthier and better educated. And, in spite of coming out of WW2 in poverty, they now are wealthy, in some ways, more wealthy than the average American citizen.

Thanks for proving you have never been to nor even learned much about Japan.

 

[JW Frogen]

Factoid: Japanese businessmen love to grope schoolgirls on subways.

Star Trek's "Sulu" George Takei holidays in Tokyo dressed as a school girl.

*This proves I have been to Japan.

 

[KittenKoder]

Factoid: Japanese businessmen love to grope schoolgirls on subways.

Star Trek's "Sulu" George Takei holidays in Tokyo dressed as a school girl.

*This proves I have been to Japan.

Sad thing, you are not that far off from the truth!

 

[JW Frogen]

Sad thing, you are not that far off from the truth!

I know, and don't even get me started about how Scotty drank mind warping whiskey down in the engine room. Why do you think he could never do it, he always needed 'more time'?

And let's not even go to Spok's sexual orientation, or as Kirk liked to say, 'Spok's trouble with Tribbles'.