MasterShake69
Posts: 752
Joined: 11/30/2005 Status: offline
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There are pros and cons to any system http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/20/health/main681801.shtml?cmp=EM8705 Canadian Health Care In CrisisFree And First-Class — If You Can WaitTORONTO, March 20, 2005 | by Chris Hawke(AP) A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies." The patient wasn't dead, according to the doctor who showed the letter to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. But there are many Canadians who claim the long wait for the test and the frigid formality of the letter are indicative of a health system badly in need of emergency care. Americans who flock to Canada for cheap flu shots often come away impressed at the free and first-class medical care available to Canadians, rich or poor. But tell that to hospital administrators constantly having to cut staff for lack of funds, or to the mother whose teenager was advised she would have to wait up to three years for surgery to repair a torn knee ligament. "It's like somebody's telling you that you can buy this car, and you've paid for the car, but you can't have it right now," said Jane Pelton. Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government. "Every day we're paying for health care, yet when we go to access it, it's just not there," said Pelton. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/subscribe?user_URL= Canada's U.S. baby boom LISA PRIEST From Monday's Globe and Mail More than 100 Canadian women with high-risk pregnancies have been sent to United States hospitals over the past year – in what a doctors' group attributes to the lack of a national birthing plan. The problem has peaked, with British Columbia and Ontario each sending a record number of women to U.S. neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Specifically, 80 B.C. women have been sent to U.S. http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care David Gratzer Socialized medicine has meant rationed care and lack of innovation. Small wonder Canadians are looking to the market. Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada. When Aucoin appealed to an official ombudsman, the Ontario government claimed that her treatment was unproven and that she had gone to an unaccredited clinic. But the FDA in the U.S. had approved Erbitux, and her clinic was a cancer center affiliated with a prominent Catholic hospital in Buffalo. This January, the ombudsman ruled in Aucoin’s favor, awarding her the cost of treatment. She represents a dramatic new trend in Canadian health-care advocacy: finding the treatment you need in another country, quote:
ORIGINAL: BbwCanaDomme quote:
ORIGINAL: MissSepphora1 I guess it might be a little like tossing the word Nazi around lightly. What in the fuck? What is it that Americans think socialists do exactly? Canada's a socialist country, and our economy is in the best shape of any of the G7 countries, our standard of living is higher, etc, why are you guys so terrified? Socialism does not equal communism and comparing socialists to nazis is just fucking retarded. edit- sorry, anger induced typos. Also, I'm not saying America needs to be a socialist country, whatever works for you guys, but seriously, there are worst things than being a socialist.
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